Gold Standard’s drills continue to hit at Railroad

VANCOUVER — Nevada-focused explorer Gold Standard Ventures (TSXV: GSV; NYSE-MKT: GSV) is showing that a promising gold project can still attract financing in these difficult markets.

In August Gold Standard completed a $5-million marketed private placement issuing 7.9 million shares at 63¢ per share, with Macquarie Capital Markets acting as agent.

A week later the company announced plans for a 9,000-metre drilling program at its flagship Railroad gold property, 47 km west of Elko.

Railroad that would cost $3 million and include 16 reverse-circulation holes to test several targets across the 69 sq. km property package.

Gold Standard’s priority was following up on stepout drill hole 13-08, which was collared 75 metres north of the company’s original North Bullion discovery, and cut 73.5 metres grading 3.67 grams gold per tonne from 304 metres down hole.

Gold Standard reports that its lower breccia — which mostly holds collapsed breccia — is the preferred environment for gold, and that the intercept in 13-08 is open in all directions.

On Sept. 19 the company released results from follow-up hole 13-11, which was collared 70 metres west of 13-08, and cut 98 metres averaging 3.26 grams gold from 322 metres down hole.

Gold Standard says the two holes confirm high-grade gold continuity across a lower flat-tabular, collapse breccia body. These systems tend to host large gold deposits in the region.

The company says it is  “increasingly confident that North Bullion represents a major Carlin-style discovery” within the large, prospective district-scale, multiple target setting of the Railroad project, and that recent surface sampling and mapping have identified several more targets along the unexplored Bullion fault corridor.

The company says discovering the “uniformly thick, high-grade mineralization in the lower breccia zone is a positive development” that has helped the company find similar zones and additional high-grade extensions to what it has discovered to date.

The company is focused on its central gold discovery, but it has also budgeted money to drill for polymetallic porphyry copper-type  systems across several targets in the BFC, Railroad fault corridor and Central Bullion area.

Gold Standard notes that it has found copper and silver mineralization across thick intercepts with grades “typical in producing porphyry copper-type mines.”

In early October Gold Standard saw its exploration efforts rewarded at its Bald Mountain target, 1.5 km southwest of North Bullion.

Vertical hole 13-1 cut 56.1 metres grading 1.47 grams gold, with most of the intercept hosted in oxidized hornfels breccia, which represents the most oxide gold mineralization found so far in the northern Railroad area. Polymetallic credits — including silver, copper, lead and zinc — bump the equivalent grade to 6.5 grams gold.

“We are excited by this discovery of gold in oxide material at Bald Mountain, as well as the multi-element potential of the broader Central Bullion area,” Gold Standard’s vice-president of exploration David Mathewson says in a release.

The company has expanded its surface-sample coverage and is looking at a target area for copper, gold and silver with a 4 km diameter.

Gold Standard looks to have the funds for more exploration at Railroad, even as it chases its primary discovery farther south along the North Bullion fault zone. The company reported US$3.4 million in cash and equivalents at the end of June, before its $5 million offering.

Shares of Gold Standard have traded between 47¢ and $1.92 over the past 52 weeks.

The company’s share price jumped up 7% following its oxide discovery at Bald Mountain, en route to a 63¢ close at presstime.

Gold Standard has 92 million shares outstanding for a $58-million market capitalization.