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 Daily KRO 2024 Favorites Report
    Publisher: Kaiser Research Online
    Author: Copyright 2024 John A. Kaiser

 

Daily Kaiser Research Favorites Report for March 18, 2024

Spec Value Rating Key - 2019 onwards
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KRO Favorites Market Activity for March 18, 2024
Company
SV Rating Updated Value Volume High Low Close Day
Chg
News
Arizona Gold & Silver Inc (AZS-V) Fair Spec Value Dec 29, 2023 $59,616 165,600 $0.400 $0.320 $0.365 $0.045 Feb 23, 2024
Brunswick Exploration Inc (BRW-V) Fair Spec Value Dec 29, 2023 $22,125 50,000 $0.450 $0.435 $0.440 ($0.010) Feb 21, 2024
Colonial Coal International Corp (CAD-V) Fair Spec Value Dec 29, 2023 $76,713 32,300 $2.410 $2.340 $2.350 ($0.090) Dec 14, 2023
Hercules Silver Corp (BIG-V) Fair Spec Value Jan 4, 2024 $1,076,828 1,139,500 $0.990 $0.900 $0.980 $0.070 Feb 28, 2024
Patriot Battery Metals Corp (PMET-T) Fair Spec Value Dec 29, 2023 $484,432 54,800 $9.040 $8.640 $8.700 $0.010 Mar 11, 2024
Solitario Resources Corp (SLR-T) Fair Spec Value Dec 29, 2023 $25,500 37,500 $0.700 $0.660 $0.700 $0.030 Mar 18, 2024
West Vault Mining Inc (WVM-V) Good Spec Value Dec 29, 2023 $0 0 $0.000 $0.000 $0.930 $0.000 Oct 12, 2023
Winsome Resources Ltd (WR1-ASX) Fair Spec Value Dec 29, 2023 $897,957 952,740 $0.990 $0.895 $0.990 $0.095

KRO Favorites News Releases for March 17, 2024 to March 23, 2024
Solitario Resources Corp (SLR-T) RSWeb SiteTreeForumSEDARQuoteFREE
Mar 18, 2024$0.70Significantly Expands Geyser Gold Target with New Multi Gram Gold Assay Results Remains Open in Two Directions

Daily KRO Favorites Comments
Solitario Resources Corp (SLR-T: $0.700)
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Tracker - March 15, 2024: Kaiser Watch March 15, 2024: Solitario Resources Corp (SLR-T)

Kaiser Watch March 15, 2024: A staking frenzy in America?
See Entire KW Episode Blog

Direct YouTube Link for Entire Episode
(0:10:13): What is the latest news from Solitario Resources Corp about its Golden Crest project in South Dakota?

Solitario Resources Corp provided an update on February 27, 2024 ahead of PDAC which highlighted a new gold zone called Wild Rose which appears to be part of a 4 km northeast trend extending from the Downpour showings first reported in 2021. Solitario applied to the USFS in 2022 for a plan of operations that would allow it to drill targets generated by surface sampling on the Golden Crest project in the western part of the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota. The property boundary extends almost to the Wyoming border, and when I asked if there was a reason to avoid Wyoming, the answer was that there is a structural break in the rocks that happens to coincide with the Wyoming-South Dakota border, to the west of which the geology is not prospective for gold mineralization.

The 75 day comment period following the FONSI ruling by the USFS in December 2023 with regard to the first plan of operations application Solitario filed in 2022 has concluded and the USFS is preparing its responses to those comments that have standing. Solitario's COO Walt Hunt thinks the USFS may be finished by mid April, which is still a month ahead of when Solitario in terms of physical access could hope to start drilling at Golden Crest. The USFS has published a project location map which outlines the prospects for which drill permits are sought. On March 18, 2024 (after this KW episode was recorded) Solitario published an update about the Geyser Zone which it first reported on in February 2024. Once again surface sampling has yielded multi-ounce gold values.

What is intriguing is Solitario's announcement that it has filed the Ponderosa Plan of Operations which it describes as being a non-contiguous part of the Golden Crest project which the December 2023 presentation depicts as 3 distinct claim blocks. When I google Ponderosa POO I get a USFS splash page which contains no information other than the approximate location, which turns out to be east of Highway 85 which tracks Spearfish Canyon. Although Solitario's map shows 3 claim blocks, a medium sized one to the north, a small one to the northwest, and the main large one, the latter is in fact a couple blocks because Solitario had the wisdom not to stake claims over sensitive areas like Spearfish Canyon.

At PDAC I took a photo of a dull looking rock which assays just under 1 opt gold, a testament as to why this western part of the Black Hills has 1,500 prospect pits (based on LIDAR analysis) compared to a hundred times as many in the eastern half where Homestake yielded 60 million ounces out of a 90 million ounce endowment for the area. CEO Chris Herald tells me that no claims have been staked since the end of 2022, and admits they were surprised to discover the Geyser Zone and were obliged to expand the land package. It turns out that the new Wild Rose zone is outside both the original Golden Crest POO and the Ponderosa POO applied for in 2022. Based on the prospect pit locations in the original Golden Crest POO and the recently revealed location of the Ponderosa POO the impression is created that the middle of the land package is an unprospective doughnut hole. That, however, is an artifact of the permitting strategy which has limited Solitario's surface sampling focus to areas accessible by logging roads and where bedrock has been exposed thanks to logging.

Last year Solitario conducted an IP survey along two 11 km lines which yielded a weak, 2 km wide chargeability high projected around a depth of 400 m just above the Precambrian basement where the Lower Deadwood formation that hosts the Wharf gold system, a 10 million ounce system with high grade zones within a lower grade envelope whose high grade was plucked out 120 years ago, with the rest being open pit mined since the 1980s after heap-leaching technology was invented. If something similar is present within this doughnut hole ay Golden Crest it would have to be underground mined, but with the high grade intact such a system might run 2 g/t gold or better which is $129 rock at $2,000 gold. Both this deep IP target and Wildrose will have to wait for future plan of operation applications. If the permit is granted drilling would start at the Downpour target for which Solitario has provided a conceptual target cartoon which shows a laterally extensive Wharf style target within the Deadwood Formation just above the Precambrian basement, and gold mineralization within the feeder structures which they are tracing with high grade surface values. Oddly, during the past week Solitario came under selling pressure through its NYSE listing which may have been a forced liquidation by an institutional shareholder. Such liquidity on the bid side will be a thing of the past if the USFS decides to confirm the Golden Crest POO.


Regional Map showing locations of Solitario's Plan of Operations Applications

Map showing location of new Wild Rose target relative to Downpour

Conceptual cartoon of Golden Crest targets using Downpour as example

Hercules Silver Corp (BIG-V: $0.980)
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Tracker - March 15, 2024: Kaiser Watch March 15, 2024: Hercules Silver Corp (BIG-V)

Kaiser Watch March 15, 2024: A staking frenzy in America?
See Entire KW Episode Blog

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(0:03:58): What are the implications of the final results Hercules Silver released for last year's drill program?

Hercules Silver Corp released the final results from the 2023 drilling on February 28, 2024 which the market liked for a couple days because it had fancy silver grades but then became disgruntled when it learned that drilling would not resume until May or later because of ground conditions. The stock has since recovered as the market began to appreciate that the meat in the final results news release was not the high grade silver-lead-zinc mineralization beneath the Hercules Adit near the contact between the "upper plate" rhyolite that hosts the silver-lead-zinc veins and the "lower plate" andesites that host the copper mineralization, but rather the geological discussion about a reinterpretation of the fault history of the area, much of which has been obscured by a thin veneer of much younger flood basalts.

An IP survey done in 2022 had revealed a substantial 1 km long IP chargeability anomaly beneath the known Hercules silver mineralization into which 400 hundred holes have been pumped since 1965, including some by Anne Mark's Anglo-Bomarc during the bull market of 1978-81. Hole 23-05 delivered in October 2023 confirmed a substantial copper porphyry system beneath the silver zones with high enough grades to support underground mining. This attracted a $23 million financing from Barrick Gold at a premium to the market (Hercules currently has $27 million working capital). But the followup holes drilled laterally and to the southeast of the IP anomaly had lower copper grades, and when released at the start of 2024 caused the stock to tank, enabling me to add Hercules Silver Corp (soon to be renamed Hercules Metals Corp) to the 2024 Favorites Collection. The company has since expanded the IP survey and stated that its footprint now extends several kilometres, but it has not published graphics for the new survey.

With the help of Barrick Chris Paul's team has done a lot scientific geology such as age dating and structural analysis, which has led to two important conclusions alluded to in the recent press release. One is that this porphyry system underwent multiple mineralizing phases, which is important for building big and rich deposits because successive fluid pulses remobilize mineralization from earlier phases and redeposit it in greater concentrations. The other is that the rhyolite "plate" that hosts the high grade silver was thrust from the northwest in a southeast direction over the andeslite "plate" that hosts the copper mineralization. This sort of high grade silver-lead-zinc mineralization one could expect at the peripheries of a porphyry system, but there is no zonation continuity between the rhyolite silver host and the underlying andesite copper host. The silver mineralization has been decapitated from the intrusive center that created it. Hercules had marched the drills along the length of the IP anomaly which turns out to have been the wrong direction. The proper direction appears to be in the northwest direction under cover rocks where no work has previously been done. Although Chris Paul would not spell out details, reading between the lines the IP anomaly extends beyond the Hercules Adit a couple kilometers.

So why the secrecy? The realization seems to have emerged among majors like Rio Tinto and Barrick that a 200 km trend of very fertile copper porphyry intrusions is located in western Idaho largely hidden by younger basalt cover rocks. Hercules has only a 2 km area of interest surrounding the existing property, beyond which Barrick is free to stake whatever it wants. And while Barrick may have seen the new IP survey data and perhaps even helped with the interpretation of the implications, there is no point in sharing those insights with other copper producers such as BHP, Rio Tinto and Freeport. Idaho, like the rest of the United State still requires old fashioned post staking so this is expensive and time consuming, plus those areas under state jurisdiction have different rules than BLM land. There is an old-fashioned copper focused staking frenzy unfolding in America!

Unlike in Arizona where major copper discoveries will be deep blind ones like Bell Copper Corp is chasing at Perseverance and Big Sandy in the hope of finding another Resolution scale deposit, these targets in Idaho, while likely still requiring underground mineable grades above 0.6% Cu, will be easier to discover and delineate if this trend hypothesis proves correct. The Hercules story is important because the big picture concept is that old mineralized systems which are typically dismissed as dead horse recycling plays can be evidence of something much bigger going on beneath the surface. All it takes is a fresh geological perspective, a willingness to think outside the box, and engage in extra data gathering that includes drilling geological scout holes. This is something the lifestyle juniors cannot accomplish, and when the resource juniors are pressed into service as the new heroes which will secure new metal supply in secure destinations, the lifestyle juniors will be left stranded at the dock as the serious boats put out to sea in search of whales.


Plan View of Hercules Discovery

Section View of Hercules old IP Anomaly

 
 

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