Item 2. Properties
ITEM 2 PROPERTIES
The following table summarizes our business segments that use our properties described below.
Business Segment
Property
Fuels
Research and Development Pilot Facility
Metals
Commercial Demonstration Facility
Mining
Mining Properties and Haywood Property
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PILOT FACILITY
On April 16, 2021, the Company entered into an asset purchase agreement with American Science and Technology Corporation (“AST”), pursuant to which the Company agreed to purchase substantially all of the real and personal property located at 6445 Packer Drive, Wausau, Wisconsin 54401 (“Research and Development Pilot Facility”), including bench and pilot scale processing equipment used in connection with some of our lignocellulosic fuels and refining processes (the “AST Asset Purchase Agreement”). Further, the Company is party to three license agreements with AST (the “AST License Agreements”) that provide for full use of the Research and Development Pilot Facility and all machinery and equipment located therein until April 30, 2025. Under the AST Asset Purchase Agreement, the Company agreed to acquire substantially all of AST’s assets in exchange for $3,500,000 due on April 30, 2024, extendable to April 30, 2025, in addition to $35,000 per month from May 1, 2022 to April 30, 2025. Concurrently and in connection with the entry into the AST Asset Purchase Agreement, the Company and AST entered into the AST License Agreements (see Note 6 and Note 8 of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements). The Company also entered into three license agreements with AST in connection with the AST Asset Purchase Agreement.
All of the assets purchased under the agreement are being used for research and development activities. The machinery and equipment acquired was built for a specific purpose and is being used in testing for development of the technology required to process woody biomass into intermediate materials that can be converted into paper products and fuels. These assets have no alternative future use. The facility purchased is an industrial property located in Wausau, Wisconsin with an alternative use. Since its inception, payments under this contract were allocated to the separate lease and non-lease components of the contract based on their initial relative standalone estimated fair values.
On April 2, 2024, the Company and AST amended the AST License Agreements and the AST Asset Purchase Agreement (the “License Agreement Amendments”) to allow for some or potentially all of the future obligation to be paid by the Company with shares of its common stock. Changes to the agreements as a result of the amendment include:
•
The Company issued 497,500 shares of its common stock to AST pursuant to the amendment,
•
On or before April 30, 2025, the Company is to pay AST an amount equal to $3,500,000 minus the net cash proceeds AST received from the sale of Company shares of common stock,
•
Interest payments on $3,500,000 at a rate of 12% per annum, with interest starting on May 1, 2024, and calculated pursuant to the terms of the License Agreement Amendments (the “True Up Payment”),
•
The Company is to pay AST $35,000 rental payment per month from May 1, 2024 to April 30, 2025, and
•
On April 30, 2025, if the value of the unsold Company shares plus the net cash proceeds received by AST with respect to the sale of Company shares exceeds the True Up Payment, such excess shall be applied towards and reduce the consideration paid pursuant to the AST License Agreement on a pro rata basis.
On April 10, 2024, pursuant to the License Agreement Amendments, the Company issued 497,500 shares of common stock of the Company to AST with a fair value of $1,587,025 determined by the closing price per share of our common stock. The fair value of $1,587,025 for the 497,500 issued shares of common stock was allocated as a reduction to the lease liability of $378,845 and recognition of research and development expense of $1,208,180. The amendment resulted in an increase in the right-of-use asset and lease liability of $114,059.
For the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, the Company recognized $1,527,920 and $319,740, respectively, of research and development expense associated with payments under this agreement. As of December 31, 2024, AST sold 24,325 shares of the Company's common stock for net proceeds of $82,316. As of December 31, 2024, the Company recognized interest expense of $281,578 in connection with the 12% stated interest rate pursuant to the terms of the True Up Payment.
COMMERCIAL DEMONSTRATION FACILITY
On August 15, 2023, the Company, as lessee, signed a Real Estate and Building Lease Agreement (the “SCP Building Lease”) with Sierra Clean Processing LLC (“SCP”) to lease real property and improvements located in Silver Springs, Nevada. The SCP Building Lease is under a five-year term commencing on August 1, 2023, subject to automatically renew for an additional five-year term. Under the SCP Building Lease, rental expense is $4,680 per month with an annual rent increase of 3% and all lease payments were recognized as rental expense. At lease inception, the SCP Building Lease was classified as an operating lease with a lease term of five years. At August 15, 2023, the Company recognized a right-of-use asset and lease liability of $213,925 and $213,925, respectively, at a discount rate of 13.57%. For the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, the fixed operating lease expense was $59,632 and $24,847, respectively. The Company's chief executive officer is an executive and director of SCP.
On July 1, 2024, the Company, as lessee, signed a Real Estate and Building Lease Agreement (the “SCP Real Estate and Building Lease”) with SCP to lease real property and improvements located in Silver Springs, Nevada. The SCP Real Estate and Building Lease is under a five-year term commencing on August 1, 2024, subject to automatically renew for an additional five-year term. Under the lease, rental expense is $70,000 per month for the first twelve rent payments, $75,000 per month for the next twelve months and $80,000 per month for the last thirty-six months of the lease term and all lease payments were recognized as rental expense. Under the SCP Real Estate and Building Lease, rent will commence and remain at $30,000 per month until all necessary and required permits are secured and operations commence. At lease inception, the SCP Real Estate and Building Lease was classified as an operating lease with a lease term of ten years based on the assumption that the Company will elect to extend the lease. At August 1, 2024, the Company recognized a right-of-use asset and lease liability of $4,567,814 and $4,567,814, respectively, at a discount rate of 12.95%. For the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, the fixed operating lease expense was $363,125 and $0, respectively. The Company's chief executive officer is an executive and director of SCP.
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HAYWOOD PROPERTY
On April 7, 2022, as amended on November 7, 2022, the Company contracted to purchase Haywood quarry and industrial property (the “Haywood Property”) from Decommissioning Services LLC (“Decommissioning Services”) for $2.1 million, payable in $50,000 of cash and 150,000 shares of common stock of Comstock with a total value of $2,295,000. The Haywood Property represents approximately 190 industrial acres in Lyon County, Nevada, and is part of one of the larger industrial parks in Lyon County. The property has power, water and highway access. The Company plans to employ a portion of the property for the storage of end-of-life electrification products.
The closing of the Haywood Purchase Agreement is contingent on liquidation of the shares and receipt of the full purchase price by Decommissioning Services. The Company agreed to make up any shortfall if the proceeds from the sale of the shares plus the deposit are less than $2.2 million, and Decommissioning Services agreed to refund any excess proceeds. This contractual stock consideration has been recognized as a derivative on the consolidated balance sheets (see Note 14 of the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements ).
On April 2, 2024, the Company and Decommissioning Services amended the Haywood Purchase Agreement to extend the latest date of the closing to June 30, 2025, and to increase the purchase price by $100,000 to $2.2 million. Pursuant to the amendment, the Company will pay $75,000 per month to Decommissioning Services, with $15,000 of each payment applied to rent expense and $60,000 of each payment applied to the $2.2 million purchase price, until the sum of such applied cash amounts plus previous cash payments plus the net proceeds from the sale of the Company common stock equals $2.2 million. On April 11, 2024, pursuant to the amendment, the Company issued 150,000 shares of common stock of the Company to Decommissioning Services with a fair value of $509,850. The payment was applied against the make-whole derivative liability associated with the common stock. The increase in purchase price from $2.1 million to $2.2 million increased the right-of-use finance lease asset and the make-whole derivative liability by $100,000 (see Note 8 of the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements) . For the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, the Company paid Decommissioning Services $420,000 and $200,000, respectively, which resulted in a decrease in contractual stock consideration (see Note 14 of the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements ).
During the period between execution of the Haywood Purchase Agreement and closing, Decommissioning Services leases the Haywood Property to Comstock Exploration for no additional consideration, providing exclusive rights to access, use or sublease portions of the Haywood Property, to obtain permits and prepare the property for its intended purpose, including improvements. If the conditions for closing are not satisfied by June 30, 2025, the Haywood Purchase Agreement will terminate and Decommissioning Services will retain a total of $400,000 in rental fees for use of the Haywood Property. During this lease period, Comstock Exploration will pay Decommissioning Services a 2% royalty of the sales price of any gravel, aggregate, or rock products produced and sold from the Haywood Property, excluding the removal of materials that have been pledged to a third-party for improvements made.
MINING PROPERTIES
The following description of our mining properties is qualified in its entirety by reference to the Technical Report Summary (the "TRS") for each of the properties included as exhibits to this Report and incorporated by reference into this Item 2. The information about our mining properties in this Report has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of S-K 1300, which requires us to disclose our mineral resources, in addition to any mineral reserves, as of the end of our most recently completed fiscal year, individually and in the aggregate, for each of our material mining properties.
Summary Disclosure
The Comstock Lode was discovered in 1859. From 1860 to 1960, the district yielded more than eight million ounces of gold and 192 million ounces of silver, from workings greater than 3,000 feet below the surface. We have consolidated the most significant portions of the historic Comstock Lode mining district, conducted surface and airborne geophysical studies, drilled extensively, and developed detailed numerical models of the mineralization. We have secured permits, built an infrastructure, and completed two phases of test production. The Company will continue amassing what has become the single largest known repository of historical and current geological data on the Comstock region.
Comstock and its subsidiaries own, control, or retain interests in mineral properties covering 6.5 miles of strike-length on the Comstock and Silver City lodes, including fee ownership of real properties, patented mining claims, unpatented mining claims administered by the BLM, one LLC membership interest (providing exclusive rights to exploration, development, mining and production), and royalty interests in patented and unpatented mining claims, totaling 8,482 acres (due to overlapping interests, the combined area is approximately 7,530 acres).
Comstock owns or controls 78 patented lode mining claims totaling 846 acres with surface parcels increasing the total to 2,114 acres, 194 unpatented lode mining claims, 38 unpatented placer claims, and one mill site claim administered by the BLM totaling 3,075 acres.
Comstock’s royalty interests include a 1.5% NSR minerals royalty on property owned by Mackay or controlled by Mackay through five mineral exploration leases. This royalty property includes 50 patented lode mining claims totaling 539 acres with surface parcels increasing the total to 695 acres, and 174 unpatented lode mining claims totaling 2,597 acres.
Because of the Comstock Lode's historical significance, the geology is well known and has been extensively studied. We have expanded our understanding of the geology through vigorous surface mapping and drill hole logging. The volume of geologic data is significant, particularly in the Lucerne and Dayton resource areas. We have accumulated a large library of historical data and detailed surface mapping of Comstock Mineral Estate properties and continue to obtain historical information from public and private sources. We integrate this data with information obtained from our mining operations to target prospective geological exploration areas and plan exploratory drilling programs, including expanded surface and underground drilling.
We have completed extensive geological mapping, sampling and drilling on a limited portion of our Mineral Estate property, particularly the Lucerne and Dayton resource areas, in order to characterize the mineralized material. We have performed metallurgical testing, mine planning and economic analysis. We conducted extensive test mining operations from 2004 through 2006 and 2012 through 2016. We have not established reserves that meet the requirements of S-K 1300 and therefore, we are an exploration stage issuer, and our Comstock properties are all exploration stage properties. We published a third-party, S-K 1300 Technical Report Summary for our Dayton Resource Area's gold and silver resources in November 2022.
We have identified many exploration targets in our Mineral Estate and, to date, have focused on subsets of our Mineral Estate, including the Dayton and Lucerne resource areas, and the Oest and Spring Valley exploration targets (collectively, our “Exploration Targets”). We own or control 100% of the properties in these target areas.
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A summary overview of each material property is as follows:
Property:
Dayton – Spring Valley Project
Stage:
Exploration
Location:
Lyon County, Nevada
Ownership:
100%
Titles and Mining Claims:
68 unpatented lode claims, 38 unpatented placer claims (1,937 acres), 37 patented lode claims (529 acres), and 21 surface parcels (592 acres).
Key Permit Conditions:
Private and BLM administered land. Required state permits in place for exploration on private land.
Mine Type:
Open Pit Heap Leach
Mineralization Styles:
Resembles the geometry of a volcanic autoclastic dome. Late-stage manganiferous calcite-quartz-adularia veining and silicified breccia zones with drusy quartz filling fractures and stockwork veinlets.
Other:
a. Certain properties have royalty interests ranging from 1.5% to 2.0%
b. A security interest in certain parcels has been granted to Alvin Fund LLC
Property:
Lucerne Project
Stage:
Exploration
Location:
Storey County, Nevada
Ownership:
Majority 100%; certain claims 50% through membership in Northern Comstock LLC
Titles and Mining Claims:
70 unpatented lode claims (444 acres), 14 patented lode claims (104 acres), and 24 surface parcels (59 acres) owned by Comstock; 12 unpatented lode claims (44 acres), 20 patented lode claims (167 acres), and 15 surface parcels (42 acres) owned by Northern Comstock LLC.
Key Permit Conditions:
Private and BLM administered land. Required state and county permits in place for exploration, mining, and processing on private land. BLM granted right-of-way for haul road over federal land.
Mine Type:
Open Pit Heap Leach
Mineralization Styles:
Zones of structurally prepared volcanic rock with multiple episodes of epithermal veins, hydrothermal breccias, and stockwork veinlets. Additional mineralization is associated with porphyry dikes, mafic dikes, and sills that have intruded the volcanic host rocks.
Other:
a. Certain properties have royalty interests ranging from 1.0% to 2.15%
b. Fully permitted, dedicated processing facility in American Flat
Property:
Northern Targets
Stage:
Exploration
Location:
Storey County, Nevada
Ownership:
Owned or leased by Mackay Precious Metals Inc. Comstock retains a 1.5% NSR royalty.
Titles and Mining Claims:
174 unpatented lode claims (2,597 acres), 50 patented lode claims (539 acres), and 106 surface parcels (156 acres) controlled by Mackay.
Key Permit Conditions:
Private and BLM administered land.
Mine Type:
Potential for Underground or Open Pit
Mineralization Styles:
Zones of structurally prepared volcanic rock with multiple episodes of epithermal veins, hydrothermal breccias, and stockwork veinlets. Additional mineralization is associated with porphyry dikes, mafic dikes, and sills that have intruded the volcanic host rocks.
Other:
a. Certain properties have underlying royalty interests ranging from 1.0% to 5.0%
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The following tables summarize our estimated mineral resources as of December 31, 2024 and 2023 for each of our exploration projects:
Gold Mineral Resources as of December 31, 2024 and 2023 (1,2,4)
Measured
Indicated
Measured + Indicated
Inferred
Mineral Resources
Mineral Resources
Mineral Resources
Mineral Resources
Tons
Grade
Ounces
Tons
Grade
Ounces
Tons
Grade
Ounces
Tons
Grade
Ounces
(000s)
(oz/ton)
(000s)
(000s)
(oz/ton)
(000s)
(000s)
(oz/ton)
(000s)
(000s)
(oz/ton)
(000s)
Dayton(3)
2,650
0.030
80
7,620
0.028
213
10,270
0.029
293
3,740
0.024
90
Silver Mineral Resources as of December 31, 2024 and 2023 (1,2,4)
Measured
Indicated
Measured + Indicated
Inferred
Mineral Resources
Mineral Resources
Mineral Resources
Mineral Resources
Tons
Grade
Ounces
Tons
Grade
Ounces
Tons
Grade
Ounces
Tons
Grade
Ounces
(000s)
(oz/ton)
(000s)
(000s)
(oz/ton)
(000s)
(000s)
(oz/ton)
(000s)
(000s)
(oz/ton)
(000s)
Dayton(3)
2,650
0.252
670
7,620
0.190
1,450
10,270
0.206
2,120
3,740
0.129
480
(1)
The term “mineral resources” means a concentration or occurrence of material of economic interest in or on the Earth’s crust in such form, grade or quality, and quantity that there are reasonable prospects for economic extraction. Inferred, Indicated, and Measured resources are in order of increasing confidence based on level of underlying geological evidence. The term “inferred resource” is that part of a mineral resource for which quantity and grade or quality are estimated on the basis of limited geological evidence and sampling. The term “limited geological evidence” means evidence that is only sufficient to establish that geological and grade or quality continuity is more likely than not. The level of geological uncertainty associated with an inferred mineral resource is too high to apply relevant technical and economic factors likely to influence the prospects of economic extraction in a manner useful for evaluation of economic viability and must have a reasonable expectation that the majority of inferred resources could be upgraded to indicated or measured resources with continued exploration.
(2)
Mineral Resources are reported exclusive of mineral reserves and are reported using the definitions in S-K 1300. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.
(3)
Dayton mineral resources are current as of December 31, 2024 and were prepared by Behre Dolbear & Company (USA), Inc. on November 30, 2022. Resources were constrained within a pit shell based on metal prices of $1,800 per ounce of gold and $20.22 per ounce of silver, and reported using a gold cutoff of 0.007 ounce per ton.
(4)
Rounding of short tons, grades, and troy ounces, as required by reporting guidelines, may result in apparent discrepancies between tons, grades, and contained metal contents.
Individual Property Disclosure
Dayton – Spring Valley
Overview and Location
The Dayton Consolidated Project is an exploration stage project 100% owned or controlled by Comstock Exploration and Development LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Comstock. The property is located at 39°15ʹ15.63″ north latitude and 119°38ʹ16.45″ west longitude, in Lyon County, Nevada, approximately two miles south of Virginia City, Nevada, 30 miles southeast of Reno, Nevada, and 11 miles northeast of Carson City, Nevada. The property is undeveloped, with no permanent infrastructure. Access is via State Routes 341 and 342. Electric utilities are available.
The mineral property includes 68 unpatented lode claims, 38 unpatented placer claims (1,937 acres), 37 patented lode claims (529 acres), and 21 surface parcels (592 acres). The Company fully owns these properties, except for the Haywood Property, which the Company has full access to and is controlled by a purchase agreement, with the final payment due in 2025, and pays annual claim fees to the BLM for each of the unpatented claims.
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Previous Operators
The Dayton property includes the historic Dayton, Alhambra, Kossuth, and Metropolitan underground mines, which produced gold and silver from 1871 through 1942. Since that time, the property has been held and explored by various operators. The drilling database includes 259 drill holes by Houston Oil & Minerals, MECO, Nevex, and Rea Gold between 1975 and 1995.
Work Completed by Comstock
Comstock began geologic mapping and surface sampling on the Dayton property in 2008. Between 2009 and 2012, Comstock drilled 82 RC drill holes and 4 core drill holes, totaling 43,235 feet of total depth in the Dayton and Spring Valley areas. In 2015, Comstock drilled 408 shallow, air-track holes to test near-surface mineralization.
Comstock performed detailed sampling in the Dayton adit in 2018. Additional work includes a ground-magnetic geophysical survey in 2011, and an airborne, 3-D magnetic/electromagnetic geophysical survey over all the Company’s Mineral Estate properties in 2020.
Geology
The Dayton deposit is located on the southern extension of the Silver City fault and hosted in Miocene age locally defined volcanic sub-sets of a bimodal volcanic dome event. The mineralized body resembles the volcanic geometry of an autoclastic dome and has characteristics of a cryptodome. Economic gold and silver mineralization typically occurs within late-stage manganiferous calcite-quartz-adularia veining and silicified breccia zones with drusy quartz filling fractures and stockwork veinlets. Mineralization within the project is gold enriched, with silver to gold ratios of approximately 10:1. This compares to ratios of silver to gold of 100:1, that were recorded for the historic Comstock bonanza ore bodies.
Technical Report Summary
The Company commissioned a TRS, authored by Behre Dolbear & Company (USA), Inc. The TRS was effective November 1, 2022 and was published November 30, 2022. The report remains current as of December 31, 2024 and 2023.
Mineral Reserves were not estimated for this project. It remains an exploration stage project.
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A mineral resource must have reasonable prospects for economic extraction. Comstock estimated mining and processing costs, as well as metallurgical recoveries to determine the economic potential for each block. The parameters were estimated based on the Company’s experience in mining and processing the nearby Lucerne deposit from 2012 through 2016. The TRS author found these parameters to be reasonable.
Economic Parameters
Metal Prices
Au price
$1,800 per oz
Ag price
$20.22 per oz
Processing and Refining
Au Recovery
80.0
%
Ag Recovery
50.0
%
Refinery Fee
1.5
%
Costs per Ton
Mining
$
2.50
Process
$
5.50
G&A
$
1.00
Reclamation
$
0.50
Total ($/ton)
$
9.50
Summary of Estimated Mineral Resources as of December 31, 2024 and 2023 (1,2,3,4,5)
Contained
Au
Ag
Au
Ag
Tons
(opt)
(opt)
(oz)
(oz)
Measured
2,650,000
0.030
0.252
80,000
670,000
Indicated
7,620,000
0.028
0.190
213,000
1,450,000
Measured and Indicated
10,270,000
0.029
0.206
293,000
2,120,000
Inferred
3,740,000
0.024
0.129
90,000
480,000
(1)
The Qualified Person firm responsible for the mineral resources estimate is Behre Dolbear & Company (USA), Inc.
(2)
Mineral resources comprised all model blocks at a 0.007 oz/ton gold cut-off that lie within an economic pit shell.
(3)
Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.
(4)
The effective date of the resource estimate is November 1, 2022. The assumptions were current at December 31, 2024 and 2023.
(5)
Rounding may result in apparent discrepancies between tons, grade, and contained metal content.
Internal Controls
Comstock’s internal controls for the Dayton project are designed to provide reasonable assurance that information and processes utilized in assessing its exploration results, as well as mineral resource and reserve estimation, are reasonable and in line with industry best practices. These internal controls include QA/QC programs in the collection of drill hole assay information based on:
-
Third-party certified labs used for assays reported in public disclosure or resource models;
-
Secure chain of custody for all assay samples;
-
Drill programs with insertion of blank, duplicate, and certified reference materials; and
-
Sufficient QA/QC results for the analytical programs.
All core and reverse circulation samples were cataloged and stored in secure, designated areas on Comstock’s property. Data has been subject to validation, which includes checks on collar coordinates, downhole surveys, geological data, and assay data. Internal controls and estimation procedures are discussed where required in the relevant chapters of the technical report summary.
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Lucerne
Overview and Location
The Lucerne Project is an exploration stage project 100% owned or controlled by Comstock Mining LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Comstock. The property is located at 39°17ʹ north latitude and 119°39ʹ30″ west longitude, in Storey County, Nevada, midway between the towns of Virginia City and Silver City, Nevada, 30 miles southeast of Reno, Nevada.
The mineral property includes 82 unpatented lode claims (488 acres), 34 patented lode claims (271 acres), and 39 surface parcels (101 acres), all owned by Comstock, or controlled through Comstock’s 50% membership interest in Northern Comstock LLC (“Northern Comstock”). The Company pays annual claim fees to the BLM for each of the unpatented claims.
Comstock acquired its original interest in the Lucerne area through its acquisition of Plum Mining in 2003. The Company continued leasing, optioning, and purchasing properties in the Lucerne Project area though 2012. The properties are now owned outright by the Company, except for the Northern Comstock properties, which will be transferred to the Company after the final payment, due in August 2026.
The property is accessible via State Route 342 and the American Flat processing facility, which is approximately a mile and a half to the west, is accessible via a haulage road with a BLM-Leased right of way.
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Previous Operators
The Lucerne property, on the Silver City branch of the Comstock lode, includes the historic Keystone, Justice, Lucerne, Succor, and Woodville underground mines. The Woodville was considered the southern-most of the 33 Comstock district “bonanzas”.
From the 1970s through 2002, previous operators included Houston Oil & Minerals, Jacqueline Gold, DWC, Double King Mining, BMRR, Oliver Hills Mining, Rea Gold, and Plum Mining. The database includes 470 drill holes by previous operators.
Work Completed by Comstock
Comstock began geologic mapping and surface sampling on the property in 2003. Between 2004 and 2016, Comstock drilled 1,001 RC drill holes and 95 core drill holes, totaling 697,127 feet of total depth in the Lucerne area. In 2015, Comstock drilled 326 shallow, air-track holes to test near-surface mineralization.
In 2015, the Company drove a 780-foot drift to the north from the floor of the Lucerne pit, in the footwall of the Silver City vein. 49 core holes were drilled into the vein from drill bays spaced every 100 feet along the drift. Additional exploration work included an airborne, 3-D magnetic/electromagnetic geophysical survey over all of the Company' Mineral Estate properties in 2020.
The Company performed extensive test mining in the Lucerne mine from 2004 through 2006, producing 12,000 ounces of gold and 53,000 ounces of silver, and again from 2012 through 2015, producing 59,515 ounces of gold and 735,252 ounces of silver.
Geology
The Lucerne deposit is located along the hanging wall of the Silver City fault. The mineralized bodies with economic grades of gold and silver are zones of structurally prepared rock with multiple episodes of epithermal veins, hydrothermal breccias and stockwork veinlets. Mineralization is hosted in the Miocene age Virginia City magmatic suite including rhyolitic and tuffaceous members of the Hartford Hill rhyolite and the underlying lava flows and lahars of the Alta andesite. An additional mineralizing event is associated with quartz porphyry dikes, mafic dikes and sills that have intruded the volcanic host rocks.
Internal Controls
Comstock’s internal controls for the Lucerne project are designed to provide reasonable assurance that information and processes utilized in assessing its exploration results, as well as mineral resource and reserve estimation, are reasonable and in line with industry best practices. These internal controls include quality assurance and quality control (“QA/QC”) programs in the collection of drill hole assay information based on:
-
Third-party certified labs used for assays reported in public disclosure or resource models;
-
Secure chain of custody for all assay samples;
-
Drill programs with insertion of blank, duplicate, and certified reference materials; and
-
Sufficient QA/QC results for the analytical programs.
All core and reverse circulation samples were cataloged and stored in secure, designated areas on Comstock’s property. Data has been subject to validation, which includes checks on collar coordinates, downhole surveys, geological data, and assay data. Internal controls and estimation procedures are discussed where required in the relevant chapters of the technical report summary.
OTHER PROPERTY
The Company owns industrial and commercially zoned properties in Silver Springs, Nevada (the “Silver Springs Properties”). The former represents 98 acres of industrial land and senior water rights and the latter represents 160 acres of commercial land along with its rights in the membership interests of Downtown Silver Springs LLC.