The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Mining Explorers 2019 – Published Nov. 1, 2019
The 2019 drilling at Dolly Varden primarily tested targets beyond the resource areas on this high-grade silver property south of Stewart, B.C.
Dolly Varden Silver Corp. is focused on expanding the high-grade silver resources at its namesake silver property south of Stewart, British Columbia.
The deposits outlined so far at Dolly Varden – Torbrit, Dolly Varden, Wolf and North Star – host 3.42 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 299.8 grams per metric ton (32.93 million oz) silver; plus 1.29 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 277 g/t (11.48 million oz) silver, according to an updated calculation completed in May.
These four deposits are associated with historic high-grade silver mines that date back to the early 20th century.
The bulk of the resources are found at Torbrit, which hosts 2.62 million metric tons of the indicated resource averaging 297 g/t (25.03 million oz) silver; and 1.19 million metric tons of the inferred resource averaging 278 g/t (10.59 million oz) silver.
While smaller, the Dolly Varden deposit hosts some of the highest grades on the property – 156,000 metric tons of indicated resource averaging 414 g/t (2.08 million oz) silver; and 86,000 metric tons of inferred resource averaging 272 g/t (754,000 oz) silver.
Dolly Varden said recent drilling has resulted in a reinterpretation of the geological model for the deposits, improving confidence and providing a more robust framework for the study and for future exploration on the high-grade silver property.
Using this framework, the company's 2019 program included at least 10,000 meters of drilling that primarily targeted prospective areas outside of the resource estimate's block models.
One such area is Chance, a target about 4,000 meters north of the Torbrit deposit that was known from shallow surface diamond drilling in the 1960s.
Dolly Varden's first Chance hole, DV19-165, cut 26.5 meters averaging 385.4 g/t silver, along with small amounts of zinc and lead, including five meters of 1,606.5 g/t silver.
DV19-173, another hole drilled at Chance, cut 15.2 meters averaging 488.3 g/t silver, including 5.6 meters of 1,043.8 g/t silver.
DV19-169, which intersected what appears to be a splay of the Chance vein, cut 8.7 meters of 265.2 g/t silver in the north splay and 12.5 meters of 340.7 g/t silver, including three meters of 700 g/t in the main splay of the vein.
"The high-grade silver intercepts in the Chance target area are very encouraging as they are outside of the current mineral resource estimate," said Dolly Varden Silver President and CEO Gary Cope. "In viewing the Dolly Varden property as a whole, it should be noted that there are multiple silver deposits and high-grade silver targets within a five-kilometer (5,000 meters) radius."
These targets include Ace-Galena, which lies about 1,000 meters northwest of Chance.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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