The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Will focus balance of 2022 drill program on extending deposit North of 60 Mining News – September 16, 2022
Mineralized interval of multi-phase quartz vein and vein breccias in hole DV22-300, which cut 1.1 meters averaging 4,326 g/t silver at the Wolf target on Dolly Varden's Kitsault Valley project in British Columbia.
Dolly Varden Silver Corp. Sept. 13 reported that this year's drilling has encountered significant silver mineralization in an extension of Wolf Vein, prompting the company to focus the rest of its 2022 program on continued step-out drilling at this northernmost deposit on the Dolly Varden side of the company's Kitsault Valley project in British Columbia.
Located about 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of Stewart, BC, the 63-square-mile (163 square kilometers) Kitsault Valley project is an amalgamation of the Dolly Varden Silver project and the adjacent Homestake Ridge gold-silver project the company acquired from Fury Gold Mines Ltd.
Four Dolly Varden deposits – Torbrit, Dolly Varden, Wolf, and North Star – host 3.42 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 299.8 grams per metric ton (32.9 million oz) silver; plus 1.29 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 277 g/t (11.5 million oz) silver.
Wolf, the second largest of the four deposits, hosts 402,000 metric tons of indicated resource averaging 3.83 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 296.8 g/t (3.8 million oz) silver; plus 9,500 metric tons of inferred resource averaging 230.6 g/t (70,000 oz) silver.
This year's step-out drilling, however, indicates Wolf could be much bigger than the resource indicates.
Hole DV22-300, which tested the down-dip extension of Wolf, cut 19.85 meters (13.9 meters true-width) averaging 584 g/t silver, 0.56% zinc, 0.92% lead, and 0.19 g/t gold. A 1.6-meter (1.12 meters true width) bonanza-grade subsection of this intercept averaged 4,326 g/t silver, 1.36% zinc, 4.21% lead, and 1 g/t gold.
Based on observations of core from additional step-out drilling, Dolly Varden says the strength of the Wolf mineralizing system appears to be increasing at depth and to the southwest. Assays are pending for hole DV22-316, which encountered strong veining, alteration, brecciation and one occurrence of visible gold over 200 meters away from DV22-300
"With an increase in vein intensity and silver grades, the Wolf Vein area is emerging as a large system, rivaling our Torbrit Deposit," said Dolly Varden Silver President and CEO Shawn Khunkhun.
This higher-grade silver mineralization at Wolf is trending southeast toward Kitsol Vein, a northwest extension of Torbrit, the largest of the four Dolly Varden deposits.
In August, Dolly Varden reported that hole DV22-283 cut 50.18 meters (roughly 30 meters true-width) averaging 414 g/t silver.
Now, the company plans to test Wolf Vein as it trends toward Kitsol.
"With an established plunge length of over 500 meters from the historic underground workings, we are continuing to step out along this trend towards the Kitsol Vein, where we recently announced similar, high-grade mineralization over 1,400 meters away," said Khunkhun. "The increasing gold and base metal content, in addition to the silver, is highly encouraging, as well as the significant widths that are potentially amenable to bulk underground mining techniques."
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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