Dolly Varden Silver intersects near-surface Kitsol vein extension with 342 g/t Ag over 18m, including 2,270 g/t Ag over 0.5m – Richard Mills

2023.08.09

Dolly Varden Silver (TSXV:DV, OTC:DOLLF) continues to have success at the drill bit, judging from the initial results from expansion drilling at Kitsol vein and Torbrit — part of a 55,000-meter drill program at its Kitsault Valley silver and gold project, located in the Golden Triangle region of northwestern British Columbia.

The land package, which includes the Dolly Varden silver property and the Homestake Ridge gold-silver property, hosts one of the largest undeveloped high-grade precious metals projects in Western Canada.

The combined resource is currently estimated at 34.7 million ounces of silver and 166,000 oz of gold in the indicated category, and 29.3 million oz of silver and 817,000 oz of gold inferred.

While the resource is already impressive at this stage, the more fascinating aspect of the project is its rich history, which can be traced back to the early 20th century when Scandinavian prospectors first made the silver discovery in what is now the Stewart Complex.

Within the boundaries of the company’s original property are two past-producing silver mines: Dolly Varden and Torbrit, which formed a prolific silver mine camp starting in 1919 that produced more than 20 million ounces in the span of 40 years, with assays as high as 2,200 ounces per tonne.

It should be noted that Dolly Varden was among the most important silver mines in the British Empire during its heyday.

Other historically active mines in the area include North Star and Wolf, which remain underexplored to this day. Together, the four deposits comprise about 90 square kilometers within the Stewart Complex.

While these deposits were already enough to work with, DV always believed that the Kitsault Valley property is prospective for hosting further precious metal deposits, being on the same structural and stratigraphic belts that host numerous other high-grade deposits on the same trend such as Eskay Creek and Brucejack (see map below).

Towards the end of 2021, the company further consolidated its position  with the acquisition of Homestake Ridge, which occupies the northern half (~75 sq km) of Kitsault Valley. This project features a high-grade gold and silver resource from three known deposits, that the company believes can be converted into higher-confidence categories.

2023 exploration

Two drill rigs are presently targeting the Wolf vein, and two are at the Kitsol vein. A fifth rig has been mobilized, thereby expanding the original 45,000m 2023 drill program to 55,000m. Over 70 drill holes have been completed to date this season.

Highlights from the Kitsol vein in the Torbrit deposit area include: 

• DV23-334: 297 g/t silver (Ag) over 8.32 meters including 1,090 g/t Ag over 0.90m at Kitsol;
• DV23-336: 342 g/t Ag over 18.00m including 2,270 g/t Ag over 0.50m and 995 g/t Ag with 3.6% lead (Pb) over 0.60m at Kitsol;
• DV23-337: 496 g/t Ag over 9.57m including 1,100 g/t Ag over 0.73m at Kitsol;
• DV23-348: 334 g/t Ag over 3.50m including 672 g/t Ag over 1.34m at Torbrit Main, south extension.

“As the flow of results from our fully funded 2023 exploration drill program have started, we continue to see successful resource expansion drilling at the Kitsol Vein, intersecting high-grade silver mineralization over wide intervals, that is potentially amenable to bulk underground mining methods,” said Shawn Khunkhun, president and CEO of Dolly Varden Silver, in the Aug. 8 news release. “We are excited to have the fifth drill turning as it will allow us to allocate extra meters to exploration drilling on our priority list of targets along the Kitsault Valley trend.” 

According to the company, holes DV23-334 and 336 extended the plunge extent of the wide, high-grade silver mineralization at the Kitsol vein for an additional 40 meters towards surface. The plunge direction has been extended to over 250m from the furthest southwest intercept, down plunge in drill hole DV22-323 (Figure 2).

Drilling has identified a consistent high-grade-interval within the wide vein interval, associated with multiple phases of brecciation.

Drill holes DV23-335, 337, 341 and 343 tested the high-grade shoot along strike. Hole DV23-337 was a 41-meter step-out, up plunge from DV18-131, confirming the consistent vertical dimension of the shoot to be 50-75 meters, along the length of the plunge. The remaining holes intersected the Kitsol vein, either above or below the higher-grade mineralized shoot.

Exploration holes to the west, testing for new structures in the hanging wall of the Moose Lamb fault, encountered a block of the Kitsol vein in drill hole DV23-338 within a fault splay. Further modeling with the new oriented core data will guide targeting of the possible offset of the Kitsol vein across the Moose Lamb fault. 

At the southern end of the Torbrit Main deposit, drill holes DV23-348 and 350 were collared as 31-meter step-outs testing for the mineralized horizon. DV23-348 intersected mineralization consistent with the lower sequence of the basin fill-style silver zone at Torbrit, within potassic-and chlorite-altered volcanic tuff.

In addition to the fifth drill rig, Simcoe Geoscience has started a magnetotelluric (MT) geophysical survey, to be run over post-mineralization sedimentary rocks at the center of the valley.

Dolly Varden plans to perform more surveys to the area west and north of Homestake Ridge, where extensive gold-in-soil anomalies coincide with strong quartz-sericite-pyrite (QSP) alteration. This is interpreted to suggest a possible source at depth for the structurally-controlled gold-silver mineralization at the Homestake Main and Homestake Silver deposits. 

Dolly Varden Silver Corp.
TSXV:DV, OTC:DOLLF
Cdn$0.72, 2023.08.08
Shares Outstanding 254.6m
Market cap Cdn$183.3m
DV website

Richard (Rick) Mills
aheadoftheherd.com
subscribe to my free newsletter

Legal Notice / Disclaimer

Ahead of the Herd newsletter, aheadoftheherd.com, hereafter known as AOTH.

Please read the entire Disclaimer carefully before you use this website or read the newsletter. If you do not agree to all the AOTH/Richard Mills Disclaimer, do not access/read this website/newsletter/article, or any of its pages. By reading/using this AOTH/Richard Mills website/newsletter/article, and whether you actually read this Disclaimer, you are deemed to have accepted it.

Any AOTH/Richard Mills document is not, and should not be, construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe for any investment.

AOTH/Richard Mills has based this document on information obtained from sources he believes to be reliable, but which has not been independently verified.

AOTH/Richard Mills makes no guarantee, representation or warranty and accepts no responsibility or liability as to its accuracy or completeness.

Expressions of opinion are those of AOTH/Richard Mills only and are subject to change without notice.

AOTH/Richard Mills assumes no warranty, liability or guarantee for the current relevance, correctness or completeness of any information provided within this Report and will not be held liable for the consequence of reliance upon any opinion or statement contained herein or any omission.

Furthermore, AOTH/Richard Mills assumes no liability for any direct or indirect loss or damage for lost profit, which you may incur as a result of the use and existence of the information provided within this AOTH/Richard Mills Report.

You agree that by reading AOTH/Richard Mills articles, you are acting at your OWN RISK. In no event should AOTH/Richard Mills liable for any direct or indirect trading losses caused by any information contained in AOTH/Richard Mills articles. Information in AOTH/Richard Mills articles is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. AOTH/Richard Mills is not suggesting the transacting of any financial instruments.

Our publications are not a recommendation to buy or sell a security – no information posted on this site is to be considered investment advice or a recommendation to do anything involving finance or money aside from performing your own due diligence and consulting with your personal registered broker/financial advisor.

AOTH/Richard Mills recommends that before investing in any securities, you consult with a professional financial planner or advisor, and that you should conduct a complete and independent investigation before investing in any security after prudent consideration of all pertinent risks.  Ahead of the Herd is not a registered broker, dealer, analyst, or advisor. We hold no investment licenses and may not sell, offer to sell, or offer to buy any security.

Richard does does not own shares of Dolly Varden Silver Corp. (TSXV:DV)

DV is a paid advertiser on his site aheadoftheherd.com

This article is issued on behalf of Dolly Varden Silver Corp.