Exploration Projects

The Aurizona Project is located in the state of Maranhão, northeastern Brazil centered at Latitude 01º30' S and Longitude 45º76' W. All year road access is available from the state capitals of São Luis, Maranhão (320 km) and Belém, Pará (400 km) and the project is approximately a one hour light aircraft flight from either capital city. Aurizona consists of one mine license and three exploration licenses totaling approximately 15,400 ha. Aurizona has a long history of gold mining since the arrival of Jesuit settlers during the 17th century and has experienced several informal gold rushes prior to the first modern exploration programs in the 1990's that culminated in the commissioning of Luna's Aurizona mine in 2011. The Aurizona Project contains a 2011 mineral resource (3.10 Moz Measured & Indicated and 0.66 Moz Inferred) and a 2010 mineral reserve estimate for the Piaba gold deposit and a mineral resource estimate (0.07 Moz Indicated and 0.06 Moz Inferred) for the Tatajuba gold deposit. The regional geologic setting of the project area, the São Luis Craton (SLC), is an eastern extension of the Guyana Shield which contains several major Proterozoic gold deposits (e.g. Las Cristinas, Rosebel, Aurora) extending from Venezuela through to Brazil. Strong similarities also exist between the gold deposits at Aurizona and those located on the West African Craton. The most recent information for the Aurizona Project is contained in a NI 43-101 Technical Report dated January 23, 2012 and filed on SEDAR.

Project geology is dominated by several sub-parallel ENE-trending mineralized shear zones that cut the Aurizona Greenstone Group. There is a strong structural control on the gold mineralization in the project area which can be seen by the close association of magnetic lineaments with the gold deposits and near mine exploration targets. Mineralization is hosted within district scale shear zones and generally at or close to contacts with a volcano-sedimentary unit which generally forms the structural footwall to the mineralization. Drilling to date has discovered two Orogenic Gold Deposits; Piaba and Tatajuba, both located within the Aurizona Shear Zone (ASZ). Surface exploration programs have also discovered 15 near mine exploration targets at Aurizona that are being explored and advanced by Luna Gold's exploration teams based out of the Aurizona camp.

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