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MINING PLAN The upland sand occurs in poorly defined patches or pockets. In fact, these pockets may have more unity than appears to be the case, but the pattern cannot be determined from surface indications. These upland deposits were created mainly by alluvial processes and probably by Coal Creek when it flowed across old erosion surfaces that are higher than the current stream course. It is likely that the stream exhibited considerable meandering and therefore the sand deposit would exhibit various degrees of meandering as well. But determining where the stream flowed at any particular point in time, which would correspond to an elevation, is virtually impossible without excavating everything in thin, horizontal slices. Furthermore, this pattern may have been broken by old drainages and tributary erosion that may have been subsequently filled. As a result, the upland sand deposit today follows a pattern that is best described as a patchwork of intermittent deposits that maybe associated with an underlying, but unidentifiable specific pattern. In short, the sand is where you find it. This pattern is so mixed that during the exploration, locations where sand was expected did not show any or very little sand and places where sand would not be expected had excellent sand. Surface indicators were rarely found to be reliable. From a mining point of view this is problematic. Because of the patchy character of the sand deposit, developing a precise mining plan and showing exactly where and how mining will be conducted at any time or place is essentially impossible. As has been done in the past, the mining starts where it is known, from exploration information, sand exists. The mining must then spread out from there and simply follow the deposit wherever it goes. When that pocket, which maybe small or large, runs out then another pocket must be opened and the depleted pocket reclaimed. The lowland sand, although it exhibits somewhat similar patchy characteristics, is a much younger deposit. As a result, it has not been so thoroughly disrupted by erosion and variable deposition. It still exhibits the kind of variability normally seen in alluvial deposits in meandering streams, but generally without the dissection by older erosion patterns. The lowland sand shows more consistency over larger areas. Nevertheless, as has been seen in the past, these deposits also generally need to be extracted in a patchwork pattern. It is just much less patchy than the upland sands. During the exploration, a few places in the eastern part of Section 36 (most southerly part of the permit area) did exhibit a limited amount of coarse gravel in one area. This gravel deposit was found only in a few exploration holes in one area, but it is possible, due to the meandering nature of the stream, that it will be found in other areas. Once again, to limit the amount of surface disturbance, the exploration did not excavate a large number of holes at high frequency in an attempt to further define the deposit pattern. With higher frequency exploration holes a better definition of the gravel and other deposits might have been achieved, but the amount of disturbance created would have been unacceptable. The principle purpose of the exploration was to generally identify the pockets of good quality sand and to characterize the general pattern of the deposits. On most of the maps in Exhibit C, the boundary of the zone of good sand is shown. This appears to be the extent of the sand deposits that are considered accessible for mining. Indications of more sand were found east of the upland sand deposit boundary, but those deposits were rejected Coal Creek Sand Resource Amendment 3 (2005) - M-1988-044 Exhibit D Page 10