Step-Out Drilling At Homestake Ridge Discovers New High-Grade Gold Zone

Step-Out Drilling At Homestake Ridge Discovers New High-Grade Gold Zone

VANCOUVER – Dolly Varden Silver Corporation reported that step-out drilling at the Homestake Ridge property intersected a new gold-rich zone, to the northwest from the Homestake Silver Deposit.

“Whether we discover new zones of high-grade gold at Homestake Ridge or expand the large, wide and high-grade silver deposits at Wolf and Torbrit, drilling continues to deliver results from the premier, undeveloped gold-silver trend in Canada,” said Shawn Khunkhun, CEO of Dolly Varden Silver.

“The new high-grade gold and silver mineralization encountered in step out drilling to the northwest of Homestake Silver represents a significant breakthrough in further defining, upgrading and expanding the mineralization at Homestake Ridge,” said Rob van Egmond, Vice-President Exploration.” This new zone remains open to the northwest, projecting towards the Homestake Main Deposit.”

The high-grade gold and silver intersections in holes HR23-389 and HR23-399 are horizontally separated by approximately 40m and are interpreted to be a new gold zone extending northwest, at depth towards the Homestake Main deposit. Deeper in these holes a second, targeted mineralized envelope was encountered. In longitudinal section, the new gold zone overlaps parallel with the known mineralized envelopes approximately 50 meters to the east. This zone remains open to the northwest below historic drilling. Drilling in 2024 will target a 350m long gap between the Homestake Silver and Homestake Main Deposits to expand this new zone. Drill hole HR23-410 is a 75-meter step-out from previously released holes HR23-395 and 398 and represents an extension of the higher grade veins to depth and below the wide, higher grade plunge. The dip of drill hole HR23-394 steepened due to hole deviation more than anticipated and remained in the footwall to mineralized zones.

The objective of drilling during at the Homestake Main and Homestake Silver deposits was to expanded multiple, subparallel mineralized zones and to upgrade Inferred Mineral Resources in the projected plunge of the wider, higher-grade zone. The drilling completed in 2023 at Homestake Main was primarily resource expansion drilling, targeting both down dip and along strike from current Mineral Resources.

At Homestake Main, the 2023 drilling tested the depth extent of the structural corridor that hosts the mineralization and infilled in areas of higher grades. Drill hole HR23-374 is located approximately 200m down dip from the modelled wide, high-grade plunge, planned as a depth test at the bottom edge of the known mineralized envelope.

Drilling along the northwest projection of the Homestake Main zone intersected the structural corridor and associated alteration but with a decrease in vein stockwork and vein breccias density.

Four exploration drill holes (HR23-417, 420, 421 and 424) tested two parallel, northwest trending structures located 300 metres and 600 meters to the west of the Homestake Silver deposit. HR23-424 tested the Fox Reef, a parallel structure approximately 900 meters to the southwest. Numerous veins and breccias were intersected with lower grade gold values. Another two drill holes (HR23-422 and 423) tested the Dilly – Rambler exploration target 1,500m to the south of Homestake Silver. Although zones of QSP alteration and structures of interest were intersected, no significant precious metal grades were returned from the samples in these holes.

The Homestake Ridge deposits are interpreted as a structurally controlled, multi-phase epithermal vein stockwork and vein breccia system hosted in Jurassic Hazelton Volcanic rocks. Mineralization consists of pyrite and chalcopyrite in a breccia matrix within a silica breccia vein system and quart-carbonate veining. The northwest orientation of the main Homestake structural trend appears to have numerous subparallel internal structures that are interpreted to form the controls for higher grade gold and silver shoots within a broader low-grade (>0.1 g/t Au) zone at the Homestake Main deposit. The main structural corridor dips steeply to the northeast at Homestake Main and rolls to steeply Southwest at Homestake Silver.