There has been little to ….

There has been little to no activity at the Bend Site since the sample drilling was done a decade ago.

Taylor County zoning administrator Kyle Noonan said his office is unaware of any additional activity taking place there, noting that whoever the owners are, they would be required to get a county permit in order to begin mining operations.

The deposit was originally discovered in 1986 and drilled in the early 1990s by the Jump River Joint Venture. The deposit is mostly copper-bearing sulfides with significant gold and minor amounts of silver in two overlapping zones, totaling an estimated 4.23 million tons of ore. Aquila Resources has obtained an exploration license from the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and is in the process of re-evaluating the deposit.

The Reef Deposit is a potential high-grade gold deposit located in the town of Easton in Marathon County. The current deposit was drilled and described by Noranda Exploration in the 1970s and 1980s. The deposit was estimated to contain up to 454,000 tons of high-grade gold reserves in scattered, shallow weathered sulfides and quartz breccias. According to reports filed with the Department of Natural Resources if this deposit is developed, it would likely be an open pit mine.