Solitario Resources’ (TSX:SLR) share price soared to its highest point in over three years after the company announced the discovery of three new high-grade gold zones at its Golden Crest project in South Dakota. The zones, named Holland, Top Dollar, and Wildcat, yielded samples with gold values as high as 57.9 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, some of the highest-grade samples ever collected in a first-pass sampling program at the project.

Chris Herald, President and CEO of Solitario, commented in a press release: “These are among the highest-grade samples collected during a first pass sampling program at a newly discovered target zone in the history of Golden Crest. It’s amazing that after three field seasons, we are still discovering high-quality drilling targets displaying super high-grade gold values on the surface. We think there is a high probability that these three zones may coalesce into a single massive zone with additional work, just like the Geyser, Spur and Zig Zag zones came together. We now look forward to our drilling program at Golden Crest that is anticipated to begin in the first part of June.”

The Ponderosa area, a contiguous group of mineral claims separate from the original Golden Crest POO, falls under Solitario’s 100%-owned Golden Crest project area in South Dakota. The new Ponderosa POO proposes low-impact core drilling to assess these new gold targets.

Following this news, Solitario’s share price jumped 10.9% to C$1.22 per share, resulting in a market capitalization of C$100.3 million ($73.7 million USD). Earlier in the day, the stock hit a new 52-week high of C$1.25.

Golden Crest: A Target-Rich Project

Solitario acquired the Golden Crest project, a large land position in western South Dakota, in August 2021. The mineral claims include holdings in a district that has historically been productive, with multiple mines including the Homestake mine. The Homestake mine, classified as a rare “Super Giant” gold deposit containing over 58 million ounces of gold, was in operation for over 125 years between 1876 and 2001, producing over 42 million ounces of gold.

In the last two decades of Homestake’s operation, limited exploration by the previous owner identified five largely unexplored areas with anomalous gold in the western part of the district. Four of these anomalies had unexplained bedrock gold sources located outside of known historically mined areas.

Solitario currently controls all four of these potential gold sources and is conducting exploration to further define the gold distribution. The company’s land holdings extend along the western and southwestern parts of the Homestake-Wharf mining district, which has produced approximately 52 million ounces of gold and contains an additional 30 million ounces in historical resources.

Additional High-Grade Gold Zones Discovered at Golden Crest

Solitario Resources Corp. (NYSE American: XPL; TSX: SLR) also announced the discovery of three additional high-grade surface gold zones, named Holland, Top Dollar, and Wildcat, at its Golden Crest project. Assay results from reconnaissance rock sampling yielded gold values as high as 57.9 g/t gold, 50.2 g/t gold, 42.7 g/t gold, 32.3 g/t gold, and 21.1 g/t gold within these zones. These zones are located within a four-square-kilometer area between the Downpour and Sleeping Beauty targets.

The assay results, totaling 203 samples, represent the final surface grab rock samples collected in the 2023 field season. Notably, 51 of these samples contain >0.2 g/t Au while 27 contain >1 g/t Au.

These samples were collected from an arcuate belt of outcropping favorable Mission Canyon Limestone, 3.5 km long and up to 1.0 km across. This belt is interpreted to ring the northern flank of a central structural dome in the highly mineralized Geyser-Sleeping Beauty zone. Further mapping and sampling of this structural zone will be a priority in the 2024 field season as it appears to influence the distribution of very high-grade gold mineralization over eight kilometers of strike length.

The newly discovered Holland, Top Dollar, and Wildcat Gold zones, along with the Sleeping Beauty and Geyser gold zones, are located on Solitario’s new Ponderosa Plan of Operations (POO) in the easternmost part of the consolidated Golden Crest property. Solitario is proposing low-impact core drilling to test these new gold targets.

Highlights from the results are as follows:

The above references an opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a licensed professional for investment advice. The author is not an insider or shareholder of any of the companies mentioned above.