Multiple High-Grade Gold Hits At Tonopah Gold Project
VANCOUVER - Viva Gold Corp reported high-grade gold results from its recently completed 10-hole, 1,515 drilling program at its Tonopah Gold Project in Nevada. This program was highly successful in infilling gaps in the existing drill pattern to connect higher grade areas into much larger zones. The Tonopah project is located on the Walker Lane mineral trend in western Nevada, about 20 minutes’ drive from the town of Tonopah.
“This drill program produced amazing results with 60% of the holes hitting long sections of high-grade gold mineralization and within the footprint our existing 2022 PEA resource pit outline. We discovered previously unknown areas of gold mineralization with longer lengths and higher gold grades than expected. These holes were placed to tie together existing high-grade intercepts to strengthen and expand the shallow high-grade starter pits for the project, which we believed will substantially improve project economics. These results are expected to increase gold ounces at Tonopah, result in an upgrade to resource confidence levels, and reduce strip ratio as waste is converted to mineralization. This drill program provides clear justification and support for additional infill and step-out drilling on this project,” stated James Hesketh, President & CEO. “Many geologists go their whole careers without seeing drill results like these, so needless to say we are very excited about Tonopah.”
TG2409 (21.3 meters at 5.1 gpt Au) was drilled as an approximate 40-meter offset to the west of TG2211 (57.9-meters at 5.0 gpt Au commencing at 40-meters depth) and was oriented to locate and cross the East Fault zone. TG2409 had impressive gold intercepts on both sides of and in the fault zone with the highest grades being in the lower Tertiary Volcanics’ (TVL) and lower grades in the Ordovician Palmetto Argillite (“OPA”). These results suggest that the East Fault may represent a feeder structure. TG2409 extended the known location of the East fault over 100-meters to the south of previous intercepts into an under-drilled area which represents a good target for additional gold discovery.
TG2408 (18.3 meters at 4.4 gpt Au) was drilled as an approximate 40-meter step-out to the north of TG2211 where additional shallow high-grade gold mineralization in the TVL was encountered. The combination of TG2409, TG2408, TG2211, and TG2318 (54.9 meters at 1.0 gpt starting at 38-meters) to the south defines a large zone of shallow high-grade.
TG2407 (89.9 meters@ 2.0 gpt Au) successfully infilled an approximate 60 to 80-meter gap between four known high-grade zones and extended mineralization to depth indicating the potential to increase the depth of mineralization in this area. The hole bottomed in gold mineralization.
TG2405 (16.8 meters @ 0.9 gpt Au) was drilled as a 40-meter offset to the east of TG2307 (50.3 meters at 0.9 gpt Au starting at 93 meters) in a sparsely drilled portion of the project on the southern extent of a zone of mineralization which includes TG2404, TG2409 and TG2219. This hole intersected a wide zone of mineralization at the TV/OPA contact.
TG2404 (36.6 Meters @ 3.3 gpt Au) was drilled to define the potential east-west width extent of a mineralized zone first intercepted in holes TG2209 (86.9-meters at 1.3 gpt Au starting at 87-meters) and TG2219 (18.3-meters at 4.1 gpt Au starting at 73-meters). TG2404 intercepted three long zones of mineralization in both the TV and OPA. The hole terminated in gold mineralization.