American International Ventures Inc. announced its pilot program geared at establishing the feasibility of a 250 ton per hour commercial mining operation at the Nick Mine is underway. The company is getting good placer gold recovery at over 18ft in depth and plan to run 80 yards a day for the next ten days, equaling 1,000 tons. The company is expecting to recover + or - 2 grams per ton.

The company also pumped the watered lower adit during setup and will take ore samples on August 17, 2012 using Skyray's XRF spectrometer, calibrated specifically for Au, Ag, and Cu analysis and assay values on site. The use of dispersive x-ray fluorescent spectrometers by AIVN's geology staff has enabled the AIVN staff to locate and quickly determine the inferred value of an existing historical mine, quickly and far more efficiently than older, time consuming, labor intensive assay methods, where large amounts of ore samplings are required on site.