Tombstone Exploration Corporation announced in combination with Goldrock Resources Inc. and the Bonanza Mining Company that the construction phase is moving smoothly and on track for the complete build out of the heap leach pad and pond at the Bonanza Harquahala Gold Mine in La Paz County, Arizona. The Bonanza Mine property includes the Harquahala and Golden Eagle mines, located approximately eight miles south of Salome, Arizona. The project totals 2,656 acres and has significant underground workings. Once leaching has started, bi-weekly delivery of the carbon to a designated gold processing facility is expected. Based on past metallurgical testing, production is budgeted at 23,000 ounces of gold or more for the 1st phase of production. The 5D Mining and Construction Company has effectively grubbed and staked the whole pad area and is halfway through the excavation of the leach pond. The completion of the construction phase is on track for completion by the end of the summer and production will commence immediately after that. Once the construction is complete, the company will start moving an estimated 500,000 tons of mined rock onto the leach pad and begin an estimated six to eight month processing period for all of the mined material in Phase One. Heap leaching is an industrial mining process used to extract precious metals and other compounds from ore using a series of chemical reactions that absorb specific minerals and re-separate them after their division from other earth materials. Similar to in situ mining, heap leach mining differs in that it places ore on a liner, then adds the chemicals via drip systems to the ore, whereas in situ mining lacks these liners and pulls pregnant solution up to obtain the minerals. Heap leaching is widely used in modern large-scale mining operations as it produces the desired concentrates at a lower cost compared to conventional processing methods such as flotation, agitation, and vat leaching.