Fortitude Gold has acquired two separate gold properties in Nevada’s Walker Lane district: the Dauntless gold property, which includes the historic Weepah gold mine, located in Esmeralda County, approximately 30 km southwest of Tonopah; and the Intrepid claim package, located in Mineral County, approximately 10 km northwest of Mina.
The 2,105-acre Dauntless land package has seen historic high-grade gold production from both open pit and underground workings with undeveloped drill intercepts including 16 meters of 3.36 grams per metric ton (g/mt) gold. Fortitude Gold staked 129 additional unpatented claims around the property to strengthen the land position and exploration potential.
Fortitude purchased the Dauntless claim package from Nevada Select Royalty Inc. for $725,000. Nevada Select Royalty Inc retained a maximum net smelter return royalty (NSR) of 3% on future production from the property claims.
The property has surface and near surface high-grade gold, historic high-grade gold production, exploration potential, and it’s located within trucking distance of Fortitude’s Isabella Pearl gold processing facility. Historic mining records indicate during the mid-1980s a small portion of the claims were mined by the Sunshine Mining Co., who reported 60,000 ounces of gold mined at an average grade of 3.1 (g/mt) and a 1:1 strip ratio.
The company bought Intrepid and a larger claim package by staking claims and issuing a maximum NSR of 3% to an individual on future production. No cash payment was made to the claim holder in association with the Intrepid acquisition.
“These two exciting acquisitions check all the boxes for us including the presence of high-grade surface and near surface gold, substantial exploration potential on both brownfield and greenfield exploration targets, and their proximity to our Isabella Pearl facility for potential future ore feed and processing,” said Jason Reid, president and CEO, Fortitude Gold. “The historic Weepah mine extracted high-grade gold back in the 1980s and, fortunately for us, the pressure of low market metal prices forced them to walk away from high-grade mineralization in both the bottom and potential expansion of the historic pit.
“Our near-term initial objective for the Dauntless includes drilling the mineralized structure to evaluate open pit expansion potential, as well as vector in on additional high-grade targets that have yet to be drilled,” Reid said. “Historic third-party drill intercepts of 20 ft of over 7 g/mt gold and 50 ft of over 3 g/mt gold are very encouraging, and it warrants a drill campaign to test, confirm, and expand on this potential high-grade mineralization.”
