The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Mining Explorers 2024 - January 15, 2025
The 38,125-meter drill program at Golddigger cut abundant visible gold and high-grade mineralization in the newly identified Bonanza High-Grade Gold Triangle within the Surebet Corridor.
This sample from the Jackpot target about 1,400 meters east of Surebet averages 636 g/t gold, 1,690 g/t silver, and 7.96% copper.
Roger Rosmus
With 66% of the core from drilling into Surebet Corridor containing visible gold and 100% of them cutting mineralization, this more than 1,800-meter-long trend running across Goliath Resources Ltd. Golddigger property in Northern British Columbia is living up to its name.
Located in the neighborhood of Dolly Varden Silver Corp's Kitsault Valley and Hecla Mining Company's Kinskuch gold-silver projects, Goliath's 52,756-hectare (130,363 acres) Golddigger property is in an increasingly active precious metals exploration region at the southern tip of B.C.'s Golden Triangle.
Over the 2021 through 2023 exploration seasons, Goliath completed more than 65,000 meters of drilling that has cut strong gold mineralization over an area of the Surebet corridor that is equivalent in size to more than 336 NFL football fields.
Despite the quantity and quality of drilling carried out at Surebet, Goliath has not had a resource calculated for this expansive area of high-grade gold mineralization.
The lack of a resource estimate for Surebet has not discouraged sophisticated investors from funding Goliath's exploration.
Crescat Capital (14.4%), Rob McEwen (3.9%), Eric Sprott (3%), and Larry Childress (1%) are among the investors that hold Goliath shares.
Crescat, McEwen, and Childress all participated in a 2024 Goliath fundraising that began at C$3 million in August and swelled to C$16.12 million after several upsizes to accommodate growing orders by cornerstone investors and others.
Roger Rosmus
"We are delighted to have received significant ongoing financial support from institutional investors Crescat Capital, and a Singapore based Global Commodity Group. In addition, we are very pleased that mining legend Rob McEwen has participated for his third investment into Goliath. We would also like to welcome Larry Childress as a new shareholder with his sizable initial investment into Goliath," Goliath Resources President Roger Rosmus said upon the October closing of the financing. "We are proud that these strategic cornerstone investors have recognized the high-quality of our gold discovery at Surebet in the Golden Triangle of British Columbia."
While Golddigger lacks an independently calculated resource estimate, it is not hard for the investors in this project to make their own conclusions based on the large bodies of gold mineralization outlined with a drill and the visible gold observed in the core of 92% of the holes drilled last year within the Surebet Corridor.
A 2023 geological model outlines three interrelated zones within the Surebet Corridor – Surebet, Bonanza Shear, and Golden Gate – that encompass an estimated 22.9 million cubic meters of mineralized rock averaging 7.74 grams per metric ton (roughly 5.7 million oz) gold-equivalent, which accounts for the value of both the gold and silver.
This model, however, does not incorporate the results from the more than 34,000 meters of drilling carried out in 2023 or the 38,125 meters completed last year.
Highlights from the 2023 program include:
• 9.7 meters averaging 10.8 g/t gold and 6.2 g/t silver (10.94 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-23-113 (Bonanza Shear).
• 7.85 meters averaging 4.76 g/t gold and 5.8 g/t silver (4.96 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-23-133 (Golden Gate).
• 23 meters averaging 18.95 g/t gold and 95.3 g/t silver (21.08 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-23-157 (Surebet Zone).
• 26.9 meters averaging 5.81 g/t gold and 719.1 g/t silver (14.68 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-23-173 (Surebet Zone).
• 7.9 meters averaging 64.88 g/t gold and 8 g/t silver (65 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-23-180 (Bonanza Shear).
• 27 meters averaging 11.07 g/t gold and 23 g/t silver (24.83 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD23-197 (Golden Gate).
During the 2024 program, Goliath focused much of its Surebet Corridor drilling on the newly christened "Bonanza High-Grade Gold Zone," a zone of very strong gold and sulfide mineralization where the Bonanza Shear and Surebet zones meet.
"Based on the two different dip directions for Surebet and Bonanza, it appears to be high-grade gold mineralizing zones, with exceptional amounts of visible gold, over a large area that we are now calling the Bonanza High-Grade Gold [Zone]," Rosmus explained.
One 2024 Bonanza High-Grade Zone hole, GD-24-235, cut 5.24 meters averaging 34.26 g/t gold and 34.15 g/t silver (35.04 g/t gold-equivalent).
The 2024 drill program also cut visible gold in a zone underlying the Surebet Corridor.
"Our deepest drilling to date, below the Surebet discovery, shows that the visible gold mineralization continues to 1,239 meters below surface into what we are calling the Deep Zone," Rosmus added.
In addition to drilling within the Surebet Corridor, the 2024 program tested two highly mineralized gold-copper outcropping targets – Jackpot and Treasure Island.
Lying about 1,400 meters east of the High-Grade Bonanza Gold Triangle, Jackpot provides a compelling target that appears to be connected to the Surebet gold zones.
One sample collected from a shear zone at Jackpot in 2023 averaged 636 g/t gold, 1,690 g/t silver, and 7.96% copper.
This sample from the Jackpot target about 1,400 meters east of Surebet averages 636 g/t gold, 1,690 g/t silver, and 7.96% copper.
"So far, we have made multiple discoveries of a series of different styles of mineralization at Golddigger – that impresses us, as they are all in close proximity which suggests a dynamic, long lived, powerful, multiple event mineralizing system at depth that remains open; hence, the more we drill the system gets bigger with ever season," said Rosmus.
Treasure Island, which outcrops from the Cambria Icefields about 36 kilometers (22 miles) north of Surebet, represents the wider potential of the Golddigger property.
Goliath geologists discovered multiple polymetallic zones over a 450- by 550-meter area at Treasure Island that remains open under the ice cap around its edges.
Highlights from channel samples collected from the recently exposed rock at Treasure Island include: 20.6 g/t gold, 63.6 g/t silver, and 5.04% copper over 0.85 meters; and 3.54 meters averaging 0.13 g/t gold, 23.96 g/t silver, and 2.34% copper over 2.48 meters.
The first four holes drilled at Treasure Island all cut abundant massive sulfide mineralization.
As of the writing of this report, all assays from the 2024 drilling at Jackpot and Treasure Island are pending.
Future work on Treasure Island will include a geophysical survey to identify the extent and geometry of the mineralized horizons at depth as well as additional drilling in 2025.
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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