The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Surebet, Bonanza upgraded; a Golden Gate to new discoveries North of 60 Mining News - January 10, 2024
Goliath's 2023 drill program expanded and upgraded Surebet and Bonanza Shear zones and tapped a new gold-silver zone that opens up the potential for making deeper discoveries.
Click on image for larger cross-section of new Surebet model.
The more than 34,000 meters of drilling carried out last year at Golddigger significantly increased the size and grade of two already identified zones – Surebet and Bonanza Shear – and added the new Golden Gate Zone to the stacked vein systems on Goliath Resources Ltd.'s emerging world-class gold-silver project about 30 kilometers (19 miles) southeast of Stewart, British Columbia.
"After only three drilling seasons and only 12 months in aggregate of boots on the ground, our Golddigger project is clearly evolving as a new world-class discovery in the prolific Golden Triangle region of British Columbia," said Goliath Resources CEO Roger Rosmus. "With our aggressive drilling campaign in 2023, we were able to dramatically increase the volume of rock in our current model of the Surebet, Bonanza and Golden Gate Zones totaling 22,900,000 cubic meters with an average grade of 7.74 g/t AuEq (gold-equivalent), that remains open."
The success and exploration potential at Golddigger has attracted investments from mining legend Rob McEwen, who now owns more than 5% interest in Goliath, and Crescat Capital, which owns 18.4% interest in the exploration company expanding Golddigger.
"This further demonstrates our projects continue to attract experienced miners and smart long-term investors," Rosmus said upon the December financing that both McEwen and Crescat participated in. "We look forward to Mr. McEwen's and Crescat's further input and guidance as we drill out the Surebet discovery and continue to unlock shareholder value from our extensive land package."
Surebet, the largest of the three zones outlined at Golddigger so far, saw a substantial increase in terms of both size and grade in 2023.
Based on modeling completed after the 2023 drill program, Surebet is a roughly 6.8-million-cubic-meter zone that averages 9.04 grams per metric ton gold-equivalent, which accounts for the value of both the gold and silver. This marks a 24% increase in volume and a 43% increase in grade when compared to the 5.5 million cubic meters averaging 6.3 g/t gold modeled before the season began.
Highlights from 2023 holes that intersected Surebet Zone include:
• 5.7 meters averaging 3.53 g/t gold and 55.3 g/t silver (4.66 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-23-130.
• 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.
• 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.
• 5.1 meters averaging 10.05 g/t gold and 154.7 g/t silver (13.24 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-23-220.
• 7.2 meters averaging 7.44 g/t gold and 22.4 g/t silver (7.91 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-23-221.
While Bonanza Shear also expanded in terms of volume, the real achievement at this zone last year was nearly tripling the grade of mineralization found there.
Following the 2023 season, Bonanza Shear is modeled to be a 15-million-cubic-meter zone averaging 8.14 g/t gold-equivalent. This marks a 15% increase in volume and a 200% increase in grade when compared to the 13 million cubic meters averaging 2.7 g/t gold calculated before the start of 2023 drilling.
Highlights from the 2023 holes that intersected Bonanza Shear 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.
• Four meters averaging 13.7 g/t gold and 9.77 g/t silver (13.82 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-23-140.
• Seven meters averaging 9.33 g/t gold and 4 g/t silver (9.4 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-23-170.
• 7.9 meters averaging 64.88 g/t gold and 8 g/t silver (65 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-23-180.
• Five meters averaging 11.47 g/t gold and 5.8 g/t silver (11.55 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-23-217.
In addition to expanding the intersecting five- to seven-meter-thick panels of gold-silver mineralization at Surebet and Bonanza, Goliath's 2023 drilling discovered the deeper Golden Gate Zone.
Based on new modeling, Golden Gate Zone is calculated to be 1.1 million cubic meters at an average grade of 3.94 g/t gold-equivalent and remains open for expansion along several fronts.
Highlights from the 2023 holes that intersected Golden Gate Zone include:
• 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.
• Three meters averaging 6 g/t gold and 4.7 g/t silver (6.15 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-23-140.
• Three meters averaging 6.26 g/t gold and 8.7 g/t silver (4.51 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-23-183.
• 27 meters averaging 11.07 g/t gold and 23 g/t silver (24.83 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD23-197.
Rosmus says the Golden Gate discovery is a game-changer for Golddigger because it demonstrates that the gold mineralization extends below the sediments that host Surebet and Bonanza into the volcanic rocks. This opens the potential for additional stacked vein systems at depth.
"To see the gold mineralization continue beyond the sediments into the volcanics is extremely positive as we look forward to continuing to expand on this discovery in 2024," the Goliath CEO said.
Goliath says several lines of evidence, including metals and geochemical trace elements, zonation, type, origin of fluids and age of the mineralization strongly suggest a porphyry feeder source at play below the stacked vein systems identified so far.
The company says a study carried out in collaboration with the Colorado School of Mines has confirmed that the mineralization formed 4,000 to 5,000 meters below the surface, which provides the potential for additional discoveries at depth.
"Making the new discovery in the volcanics gives us a clear path to chase the high-grade gold potential at depth to continue exploring for the heat engine (porphyry?) that caused the gold mineralization at Surebet, Bonanza and the Golden Gate zones," said Rosmus. "We strongly believe that our Golddigger project is emerging as one of the most important gold discoveries in the Golden Triangle."
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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