Despite high-grade gold production for nearly seven decades to the late 1930’s from veins situated over 1,000 metres apart in the same structural corridor, the Yuge property in Humboldt County in northern Nevada remains woefully underexplored. The land is home to the historical Columbia and Juanita mines that were worked only on small scale and only as deep as the oxidized zone.
Diamond drilling in 1981 cut 9.70 g/t gold over 3.3 metres starting just 49 metres below surface, but that was the last time a rig penetrated the ground.
Partners Trifecta Gold Ltd. (TSX-V: TG) and Silver Range Resources (TSX-V: SNG) are aiming to revitalize the Yuge property, recently completing a reconnaissance program focused on the Columbia, Juanita and Josie zones. Further, an airborne total magnetic field and radiometric survey was completed by Precision GeoSurveys in May.
During the companies’ exploration program, 68 rock and chip samples and 25 soil geochemical samples were collected for analysis. 35 of the rock samples returned grades in excess of 1 g/t gold and many were above 5 g/t gold, including one grading a whopping 150 g/t gold from the Columbia zone.
Other impressive results included 75.4 and 34.9 g/t gold from Columbia; 86.1, 45.2, 42.2, 36.2 and 25.7 g/t gold from Josie; and 11.4 and 6.35 g/t gold from Juanita.
While obviously still early in the exploration stage, the results suggest that gold mineralization is much more widespread in the area than historical data shows. To that end, Trifecta has staked additional claims that more than double the size of the project.
The company is evaluating additional exploration, such as geological and alteration mapping and possibly ground geophysical surveys next to define drill targets in preparation to core the first holes in the ground in almost four decades.
Shares of TG have sprinted ahead 31.6% in Thursday trading to 12.5 cents, while shares of SNG are flat at 16 cents with about two hours left in the trading session.
