Goliath Resources is my highest conviction gold exploration pick with an impressive discovery. This is their best hole to date which works out to a 1392 gram metre hit which makes it one of the best high-grade gold hits that have been reported in awhile in Canada.
It is what I affectionately like to call a jewellery box hit, one of the nice things about them is there is usually plenty more high-grade gold around them. When a gold system has jewellery box hits, there are often more of them in the system. It makes for jackpot mining when they can be tapped into.
Surebet has a series of stacked veins in the Surebet Zone at the top of the system in the sedimentary rocks that all dip gently in the same direction. Further down they have hit the Bonanza Zone at the contact of the sedimentary and volcanic rocks which gently dips in the opposite direction of the Surebet Zone. Then below that they have the emerging Golden Gate Zone within the volcanic rocks, which dips in the same direction as the stacked veins in the Surebet Zone. Another emerging discovery is a series of steeply dipping reduced intrusion related zones.
What is somewhat mind boggling is that they are still likely at the top of the system, and I also find the opposite dip directions of the stacked veins at Surebet and Bonanza intriguing. Due to them coming in from opposite directions, it opens up the possibility that there could be two separate sources or one big one under everything.
One of the things that stands out the most to me is the remarkable amount of widespread visible gold found in the Surebet discovery with visible gold found in every rock package. At the top of the system is sporadic fine-grained gold, as they have followed the system deeper it transitions to abundant fine-grained visible gold, including coarse-grained visible gold.
In 2023, drilling was mostly in the stacked veins in the sediments at the Surebet Zone with around 32% of the holes hitting visible gold. Then in 2024, they drilled deeper where the abundance of fine-grained visible gold increased and they started seeing coarse-grained visible gold in the drill core. With 92% of the holes in the 2024 drilling season returning visible gold. This shows continuity and predictability as well that their geological team has a great handle on the gold system.
I’m a huge fan of high-grade gold systems, and have been following exploration in the Golden Triangle of British Columbia for a few decades. The Surebet discovery is shaping up to be one of the best high-grade gold discoveries in the Golden Triangle in many years. Which is saying a lot because the Golden Triangle is one of the most prolific mining jurisdictions in the world and has been intensely explored for many decades.
A perfect analogue for the Surebet discovery is the Pogo Mine in Alaska. Both have stacked veins that are gently dipping and vertical reduced intrusion related zones and both are well endowed with high-grade gold. The Pogo Mine is one of the great North American high-grade gold mines and with the direct geological similarities, Surebet is on a great path to success.
Initial metallurgical work at Surebet is also very promising as the recoveries are over 90% with around half of the gold recoverable with gravity separation.
One of the key zones at the Surebet discovery is the Bonanza High-Grade Gold Zone which doubled in size during the 2024 drilling season. It is big and high-grade, even more impressive is that it is only a couple hundred metres above the valley floor. What makes that an exciting prospect in a mining scenario, is a tunnel could go in from the side of the mountain and tap right into the high-grade gold system.
Most high-grade gold systems are pretty deep and need significant underground workings to reach them. Although the drilling from up the mountain has long holes, the high-grade gold system basically starts right on the side of the mountain and goes into the mountain for a long distance and down the mountain to below the valley floor giving it over 1000 metres (which remains open in every direction) of vertical relief. Which means it has the potential of relatively minimal underground workings that would immediately hit the high-grade gold system and could with precision start right in the Bonanza High-Grade Gold Zone.
When you take everything into consideration including the metallurgy, stacked veins, access into the Bonanza High-Grade Gold Zone, direct analogy to the Pogo Mine, and the trends in the widespread distribution of visible gold. Surebet is definitely one of the best new high-grade gold discoveries in the Golden Triangle in many years.
All the best,
Allan Barry Laboucan