On February 25, 2022, Dolly Varden Silver Corporation and Fury Gold Mines Ltd. completed their previously announced transaction whereby Dolly Varden has acquired from Fury, through the acquisition of Fury's wholly-owned subsidiary Homestake Resource Corporation, a 100% interest in the Homestake Ridge gold-silver project ("Homestake Project"), located adjacent to the Dolly Varden Project ("DV Project") in the Golden Triangle, British Columbia (the "Transaction").
The close proximity of the Homestake Project and DV Project, combined with common infrastructure in the region, is expected to generate substantial co-development synergies for the consolidated Homestake Project and DV Project, to be called the “Kitsault Valley Project”, as the respective deposits are advanced in combination.
Summary:
Homestake Ridge lies within the highly prolific Iskut-Stewart-Kitsault Belt that is host to several precious and base metal mineral deposits. Homestake Ridge has over 80 mineral occurrences on the Homestake Ridge related in the emplacement of intrusive stocks and felsic domes into the volcanic sedimentary host rocks.
Diverse mineralization styles on the Homestake Ridge include stratabound sulphide zones, stratabound silica-rich zones, sulphide veins, and disseminated or stockwork sulphides.
Mineralization displays characteristics of both epithermal gold and VMS deposition. Stratabound and vein (or replacement) mineralization is present that contains values in Ag, As, Au, Cu, Hg, Pb, Sb and Zn. The property geology is considered to be favourable for the discovery of “Subaqueous Hot Spring Au-Ag” or “Low Sulphidation Epithermal Au-Ag” type deposits.
The main zones of the Homestake Ridge deposit are the Homestake Main, Homestake Silver, and Silver Reef. The Homestake Main is the more copper-rich of the zones, with both gold-rich and silver-rich variants and an apparent trend of increasing copper grade with depth. The Homestake Silver zone is primarily silver with elevated lead values, and South Reef is essentially high-grade gold, with minor copper and lead.
The Homestake deposits are commonly vertically zoned from a base metal poor Au-Ag-rich top to an Ag-rich base metal zone over a vertical range of 250 m to 350 m. The silver-galena-sphalerite veins of the Homestake Silver Zone exhibit many of these features.
Homestake Main Deposit
The Homestake Main deposit consists of a series of silica to silica-carbonate-chlorite altered lenses and hydrothermal breccias, which have a northwest strike and dip moderately northeast at slightly steeper than the topographic dip-slope. Gold and silver mineralization occurs with pyrite, chalcopyrite, and lesser galena and sphalerite in stronger areas of silica alteration or hydrothermal brecciation within zones of sericite-pyrite altered feldspar-hornblende phyric volcanic rocks. Only along the southwestern flank of the Homestake Main deposit does lower grade gold mineralization penetrate up into the overlying package of basinal filling volcano-sedimentary and andesitic rocks which comprise the “hanging wall” sequence. Native gold along with pyrargyrite and acanthite have been observed hosted within quartz veins and quartz-carbonate hydrothermal breccias in drill core.
The Homestake Main deposit as currently known is about 700 m long and has been traced downdip by drilling for a distance of approximately 500 m. At the surface, the northwestern extent of the mineralization is obscured by a glacier; while to the southeast surface geochemistry indicates that the zone continues towards the Homestake Silver deposit 700 m to the southeast. Widths of the Homestake Main Zone vary up to about 60 m (approximate true width) and are defined by assay grades due to the diffuse nature of the mineralization.
Grades for gold typically range from 0.1 g/t Au to 2 g/t Au with some intercepts measuring into the hundreds of grams per tonne and averaged at 7.75 g/t Au. Silver grades are generally in the 1.0 g/t Ag to 100 g/t Ag range but can be as high as hundreds and even thousands of grams per tonne. The average silver grade in the HM is 68.6 g/t Ag. Copper grades vary from parts per million to several percent, with mean grades observed to increase significantly with depth.
Homestake Silver Deposit
Homestake Silver Deposit is located 300 m to the southeast of the Homestake Main zone, the Homestake Silver deposit is comprised of a series of northwest trending, vertically to sub-vertically dipping hydrothermal breccias. Mineralization occurs as galena, sphalerite and silver in contrast to the gold enriched chalcopyrite seen the Homestake Main deposit. Modelling indicates that the Homestake Silver deposit can be traced over 700 m strike and 550 m down dip.
The Homestake Silver zone comprises a cluster of parallel structurally controlled zones, striking approximately 140° with near-vertical dips. The individual sub-zones in the Homestake Silver zone are narrower than the Homestake Main zones on average, with true thickness rarely exciding three metres. The Homestake Silver zone has been traced by drilling for a total vertical extent of approximately 600 m, along a strike length measuring just under 800 m.
Silver grades at Homestake Silver average 154 g/t Ag, approximately double that of the HM (68.6 g/t Ag) and 26 times that of SR (5.8 g/t Ag). Gold grades at Homestake Silver typically range up to several g/t Au and averaged 3.5 g/t Au in the samples contained within the interpreted zone boundaries. Copper content is comparatively low, however, geochemically significant, and generally measures between 10 ppm Cu and 500 ppm Cu. There are elevated levels of lead and zinc, typically measuring in the 10 ppm to 1,000 ppm range, with some intercepts assaying as high as several percent lead and/or zinc.
South Reef Zone
The South Reef deposit is located approximately 800 m to the south-southwest of the Homestake Silver deposit. Gold mineralization is variably associated with strong quartz-chlorite alteration, pyrite and minor base metal sulphides interspersed with intervals of sericite and pyrite alteration in two en-echelon, northwest-trending sub-vertical mineral zones that can be traced with drilling for over 250 m strike-length and 250 m dip. Several base-metal enriched intercepts are identified up-section from the gold-enriched zone but have yet to be fully defined by drilling.
The South Reef zone is comprised of two narrow sub-parallel tabular bodies which strike at approximately 120° to 130° and dip 70°NE to 80°NE. To date, only twelve holes have intersected significant mineralization, as such characterization of the structure and grades is preliminary. The zones measure one metre to three metres in thickness and have been traced for approximately 300 m vertically and 400 m along strike. Silver grades at South Reef average 5.8 g/t Ag in the vein samples. This is offset by high gold values, which average 5.9 g/t Au.
All three zones have elevated arsenic and antimony contents, typically averaging in the tens to low hundreds of parts per million.