Several public sources indicate that approximately one million ounces of gold have been produced by local miners at Patrocinio. Belo Sun’s geologists have confirmed 19 property locations where current or former gold production has occurred from two types of mineralization: high-grade quartz veins and hydrothermally-altered granites where gold is associated with sulphides.

The Patrocínio Project was initiated with the objective to identify and characterize primary gold mineralization, representing the sources of large alluvium deposits, which produced a huge amount of gold extracted from the Surubim river and its tributaries, which even today are still mined by garimpeiros (artisanal miners).

Within mineralized zones, gold grades have been demonstrated to range from roughly 1 to 67 grams per tonne (g/t) within the quartz veins and from roughly 1 to 37 g/t within the granites. Channel sampling along a quartz vein in the Alcantara pit returned grades ranging from roughly 4 to 37 g/t gold over aapproximately 8 metres.

After an extensive campaign of geochemical soil sampling, targets were identified with anomalous concentrations of gold, later covered by ground geophysical IP survey, which was performed with the aim of identifying disseminated sulphides bodies associated with granitic rocks in the subsurface.

Some of the geophysical anomalies that were identified became the main targets for a diamond drilling program, which included 16 boreholes and a total of 1.610 metres drilled. Two of the holes confirmed the existence of hydrothermalized granitic rocks and sulphides at depths from 41 to 104 metres, and one of them detected significant gold grades, associated with centimetric quartz veins and sulphide (Pyrite).

The project is subject to a 1.5-percent NSR royalty and a sliding scale payment due in quarterly installments during the first two years of production from the property, dependent on the proven and probable reserves at the start of production.

In 1995 the Geoexplore Consultoria Mineral, conducted a regional evaluation of the Tapajos gold mines for Barrick Gold Corporation and the Patrocínio area was chosen among others as a first priority target. The consulting firm started the research campaign in the following year, and identified two styles of high grade gold mineralization: the first associated with quartz-sulphide veins in intrusive granites of Paleoproterozoic age, and the second on hydrothermalized granites with disseminated sulphides. The consultant has concentrating its efforts on the Malachias and Alcantara “garimpos”.

Geoexplore research had comprised geochemical soil sampling, geological mapping, ground geophysics (IP) and rotary diamond drilling.

The Patrocínio area was than acquired by Belo Sun (then Verena Minerals), which invited Kinross in 2006 to participate in a joint venture.

In September 2006, the project was optioned to Kinross Gold Corporation, which could earn a 51% interest by spending US$3 million over three years, and an additional 14% interest by spending an additional US$5 million in the same period. Kinross was the project operator during the option period.

The CNM, a subsidiary of Canadian company Kinross Gold Corporation began its work in the Project in 2007, after establishing a joint venture with Verena Minerals, which has an agreement with the actual holders of mineral rights in the area.

Recognizing the great potential of the Tapajos Mineral Province to host gold mineralization, the CNM has hired the company FUGRO to perform airborne geophysical survey for magnetometry and gammaspectrometry covering not only the Patrocínio region, but also the Creporizinho and Creporizão regions, known to have many artisanal gold mines.

The data were interpreted by the RECONSULT Company that has integrated it with the regional recognition program data implemented by CNM in the major mines of the Tapajós region. They found that there were a strong correlation between the location of mines and magnetic structures.

Belo Sun personnel are currently reevaluating historical geophysical and geochemical data in order to start a new drilling program in the near future.

The Amazonian Craton is a large continental lithospheric plate consisting of several crustal provinces from Archean to Mesoproterozoic age. According to Rosa-Costa (2006), distinct lines of research have shown several tectonic evolution models for the Amazon Craton. The author highlights the work of Hasui et al. (1984), Hasui and Almeida (1985) and Costa & Hasui (1997), who consider the Amazon Craton as an Archean continental shelf, affected by several events of crustal reworking and rejuvenating.

Rosa-Costa (2006) also highlights the work of Cordani et al. (1979), appointed him as a precursor to another line of research that considers the craton as being result of successive episodes of crustal accretion in the Paleo and Mesoproterozoic.

The Tapajos gold province is located in the central portion of the Amazon craton and is characterized by an extensive Paleoproterozoic volcanic-plutonic magmatism, overlying a basement of metavolcanic-sedimentary rocks from the Jacareacanga Group and granite-gneiss from the Cuiu Cuiu Complex. The plutonic rocks are framed in the Creporizão (Ricci et al. 1999), Parauari and Maloquinhat (Klein & Vasquez 2000) suites.

The Creporizão suite is represented by syenogranites and monzogranites with subordinate granodiorites and tonalites, generally deformed, with U-Pb ages and Pb-Pb zircon age of 1997 ± 3 Ma and 1957 ± 6 Ma (Santos et al. 2001). The Parauari Suite is consisted dominantly of granodiorite and monzogranite, usually free of deformation, with ages around 1.89 Ga (Brito et al. 1999). The Maloquinha suite, with characteristics A-type granites (Vasquez et al. 2001), is dominated by syenogranites and alkali-feldspar granites with ages around 1.88 Ga (Lamarão 2001). The volcanic rocks are widely distributed in the Province, being grouped indiscriminately in Iriri Group from the Uatumã Supergroup (Dall'Agnol & Silva 1991) or locally, in the Bom Jardim Formation (Almeida et al. 2000).

Mafic rocks, belonging to the Ingarana and Cachoeira Seca suites and the Crepori Diabase (Quadros et al. 1999), besides several sedimentary cover (Santos et al. 1975) complete the stratigraphic framework of the province.

The Creporizão suite has been described as representing a set of granitic batholiths, sometimes with protomylonites features and amphibolite facies metamorphic grade, sometimes with predominantly igneous features attributed to deformation resulting from the emplacement process in the crust. The Paleoproterozoic unit consists of syenogranites, monzogranites with subordinate granodiorites and more rarely tonalites and quartz-diorites, distributed according to regional NW-SE shear trend, intruded into the Cuiu Cuiu Complex rocks.

The Parauari intrusive suite is represented by batholiths or elliptical stocks elongated in the NW-SE trend, forming irregular and rectangular segments resulting from the intersection of NW-SE NE-SW and NS lineaments.

Paleoproterozoic in age the unit is divided into three facies according to petrochemical and geochronological characteristics. The granodioritic facies consists of granodiorite with biotite and/or hornblende, subordinate monzogranite and rarely tonalites, quartz-monzonite, quartzodioritos and diorites. The granitc facies consists of monzogranite, syenogranites with biotite and/or hornblende, with pink to whitish gray color. Rocks are equigranular and inequigranular and also porphyritic, medium to coarse grained. The lithotypes from this facies contains magnetite and molybdenite and hosts quartz veins carrying gold and sulfides. The granitic facies with titanite consists of monzogranites with biotite and/or hornblende and rarely syenogranites and granodiorites. They are leucocratic rocks with pink to reddish color, equigranular texture and medium to coarse grained.

In the Patrocínio region, gold is mainly associated with quartz veins with the presence of sulfides (pyrite). These veins are embedded in granite rocks, with small alteration haloes mainly composed of sericite and chlorite.

In the “garimpos” pits the presence of coarse granites with K-feldspar is common, and when sulfides are present, reasonable grades of gold can be found. The observed mineralization style has similarities to that described by Julian et al 2001 from the Batalhas and Rosas de Maio granites, where the mineralization is classified as Porphyry Au Type.

The most potent (metric) veins, have mainly NW-SE direction, while centimetric veinlets identified in the shafts, are preferred of NE-SW direction. These two systems of veins represent the main occurrences of primary gold in the region, where the thicker veins are mined in open pits and the others mined with the excavation of shafts and galleries