Two major plate scale structures intersect in the area of the northern Black Hills and over 45 million troy ounces of gold production have been realized at this tectonic intersection. Capella's Tinton Gold Project lies at this intersection along the Lewis & Clark Lineament and within the bounds of the broad Trans-Hudson Deformational Zone between the Lead and Tinton domes.
Gold Mineralization at the Homestake Mine is exclusively hosted within plunging synclinal fold structures of the Early Proterozoic Homestake Iron Formation associated with extensive ductile shearing and subject to upper greenschist to lower amphibolite facies metamorphism. The prospective greenschist-amphibolite thermal transition (biotite-garnet isograd), which is critical to the location of gold mineralization at the Homestake Mine, lies somewhere east of the Tinton Dome. Capella geologists believe the preponderance of the evidence points to a good possibility that a blind Homestake-style deposit with 40 million ounce potential is situated under Paleozoic cover in the area of the Capella claims group on the east side of the Tinton Dome.
Homestake Mining Company ("Homestake"), amongst others, explored the Tinton Area intermittently since the 1940's. Known work performed includes a regional gravity survey, systematic sampling for gold of the Eocambrian outcrops, and two deep core holes spaced approximately 7km apart (WR-93-1 and WR-94-2). Both holes intersected stratigraphy similar to that at the Homestake Mine area and weakly anomalous gold (60ppb) was present in the bottom section of drill hole WR-94-2.
On behalf of Capella Resources, Brian Cole, P. Geo. completed an independent review of the Tinton Gold Project in 2006. Mr. Cole sampled the nearby adit known to contain anomalous gold in basal Deadwood sandstone. A total of 16 contiguous chip samples were taken from the adit wall: 14 in sandstone, two from an Eocene-age intrusive sill. Analysis revealed nine of the fourteen samples in sandstone carried gold values >10ppb. There was one spike high of 501ppb gold.
Drilling permits for the Tinton property have been received by Capella and the Company expects to drill a 2,000 metre hole located east of the adit.