Exploration and Development
Golconda Resources Ltd. explores for gold and silver mineralization in South Western Nevada—South Monitor/Monitor Flat and Ralston Valley/Baxter Spring properties—and most recently it has entered into an option agreement to begin exploration on a copper-gold property in Northern British Columbia.
South Western Nevada
Gold and Silver Mineralization
Since 1985 the discovery of blind gold deposits (below a depth a 750 ft.) in the Carlin area made Nevada the third largest gold producer in the world. Now the area around Tonopah, in south western Nevada, is recognized as having the same geological features for large Carlin type gold deposits—more so than the Carlin area itself. Golconda controls two properties in the Tonopah area of Nevada which have the potential to contain sediment-hosted gold deposits (Carlin-type) in a Paleozoic limestone sequence.
Ralston Valley/Baxter Spring Property South Monitor/Monitor Flat Property
Ralston Valley/Baxter Spring Property
Golconda holds 100% interest. Gold mineralization in a northwest trending Walker Lane structure cuts Palaeozoic limestone and is parallel to the Midway structure.
Golconda staked part of the gravel-covered valley in 1997 because the areas of drusy quartz-barite veining, silicification and decalcification, although erratic and narrow in the outcropping limestone, become more consistent and attain a width of over 300 meters (1,000 ft) just before the outcrops are covered by gravel.
The drilling intercepted the upper, shaley part of the sequence. Deeper drilling is expected to intercept higher gold values as the lower part consists of laminated silty limestone in the same rock-type which contains the majority of the gold in the Carlin area.
The South Monitor Prospect (80% Golconda - 20% Nassau) is the most advanced of Golconda's Nevada properties. Five major companies have worked on the property before us. Nearly all of their work was confined to the low hills at the end of the Monitor Mountain range, where widespread but erratic gold-silver mineralization occurs in the south zone. Golconda discovered two other zones with gold-silver mineralization in the flats adjoining the hills. Blind mineralization means that the gold-silver mineralization starts at depth and the overlying rock contains no gold values. The mineralization is covered by a thick clay blanket and therefore it forms the flat, low-lying areas.
It was Golconda's discovery that consistent and contiguous gold-silver mineralization occurs in the flats under the thick clay blanket, while the mineralization in the hills is erratic. This discovery changed the economic potential of the property. The gold-silver mineralization has been followed to a depth of 620 feet, where it is still oxidized.
The alteration at South Monitor is larger and stronger than that of Round Mountain, and the amount of gold occurring in three distinct areas at South Monitor over a distance of 2 miles gives the property excellent potential to contain a large high-grade gold deposit in the underlying limestone.
Although the gold-silver values only occur at a certain depth below the surface, typical alteration patterns and traces of specific other metals can be found in the rocks directly overlying the gold-silver zones.
Monitor Flat Property
Golconda holds 100% interest in 27 claims (540 acres). The claims are covered by sand and gravel, except for two small hills, each with a diameter of about 50 m (150 ft). These two hills, about 1 km apart, show hydrothermal alteration and anomalous gold, arsenic and mercury values in Tertiary volcanics.
The main attraction of these claims is the potential for high-grade Carlin-type gold mineralization in the underlying Ordovician limestone, which is projected to start at a depth of about 50–60 m (200 ft).
Gravity Map of Tonopah-Goldfield Area