The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Drill intersects 93.95 meters of 1.74 g/t gold and 213 g/t silver North of 60 Mining News - January 17, 2024
Dolly Varden's 2023 Kitsault Valley drilling significantly expanded mineralization at the Homestake Silver deposit.
Click on image for larger Kitsault Valley Trend map.
Dolly Varden Silver Corp. Jan. 16 reported that its 2023 drilling has significantly expanded the high-grade mineralization at the Homestake Silver deposit toward the north end of the company's Kitsault Valley project at the southern tip of British Columbia's Golden Triangle.
Lying about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of Stewart, BC, the 63-square-mile (163 square kilometers) Kitsault Valley project is an amalgamation of Dolly Varden's namesake project and the adjacent Homestake Ridge gold-silver project the company acquired from Fury Gold Mines Ltd.
Four deposits associated with past producing mines on the Dolly Varden end of Kitsault Valley – 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 ounces) silver; plus 1.29 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 277 g/t (11.45 million oz) silver.
Homestake Ridge, which lies 5.5 kilometers (3.5 miles) northwest of the northernmost Dolly Varden deposit, hosts three deposits with 736,000 metric tons of indicated resource averaging 7.02 g/t (165,993 oz) gold and 74.8 g/t (1.8 million oz) silver; plus 5.55 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 4.58 g/t (816,719 oz) gold and 100 g/t (17.8 million oz) silver.
Dolly Varden's 2023 program at Kitsault Valley included 51,454 meters of drilling focused on expanding mineralization at and between the Dolly Varden and Homestake Ridge deposits.
The latest batch of results is from 12,150 meters of drilling in 23 holes at Homestake Silver, which hosts 3.35 million metric tons of the Homestake Ridge inferred resource averaging 146 g/t (15.7 million oz) silver and 3.13 g/t (337,000 oz) gold.
The 2023 drilling at Homestake Silver targeted priority expansion targets based on Dolly Varden's structural interpretation of the deposit.
"Applying what was learned from the structural reinterpretation work at the Homestake Main gold zone to the existing wider spaced drilling at Homestake Silver Zone has led to the discovery of high-grade pathways within a continuous mineralized envelope with average precious metal grades above the average resource grades and over much wider intervals than expected," said Dolly Varden Silver Vice President of Exploration Rob Van Egmond.
Highlights from the initial 23 holes include:
• 55.9 meters averaging 2.32 g/t gold and 54 g/t silver in hole HR23-407, including 10.72 meters averaging 8.94 g/t gold and 191 g/t silver.
• 40 meters averaging 1.4 g/t gold and 110 g/t silver in hole HR23-413, including 3.96 meters averaging 3.05 g/t gold and 415 g/t silver.
• 22.8 meters averaging 5.11 g/t gold and 206 g/t silver in hole HR23-415, including 6.8 meters averaging 43.4 g/t gold and 1,020 g/t silver.
• 93.95 meters averaging 1.74 g/t gold and 213 g/t silver in hole HR23-416, including 9.16 meters averaging 13.16 g/t gold and 3,085 g/t silver.
• 79.2 meters averaging 2.57 g/t gold and 102 g/t silver in hole HR23-419, including 9.22 meters averaging 9.53 g/t gold and 718 g/t silver.
The 2023 drilling at Homestake Silver has identified a substantial zone of exceptional precious metal grades, often typified by multiple phases of silver and gold mineralization, over wide, continuous intervals that are potentially amendable to bulk underground mining methods," said Dolly Varden Silver CEO Shawn Khunkhun. "Results from additional step-out holes to the north of these intercepts are being finalized and are expected to be announced shortly."
Overall, Dolly Varden is awaiting finalized results from 47 of the 115 holes drilled at Kitsault Valley last year.
This includes four additional holes drilled at Homestake Silver, all 25 holes drilled at Homestake Main; six exploration holes drilled across the wider Homestake Ridge area; and 12 additional holes drilled at the Dolly Varden end of the Kitsault Valley trend.
For highlights from previously reported 2023 holes drilled in the Dolly Varden deposits area, click here.
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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