Having spent three years compiling a controlling land position in this historic district,
Situated in southwestern Nevada, Goldfield has a mining history that dates back to the beginning of the century, when local miners Harry Stimler and William Marsh stumbled across gold-bearing outcrops while prospecting south of Tonopah. By 1904, the rush was on. At its peak, 30,000 people lived in Goldfield; the population has since dwindled to 350.
It was a high-grade camp, where miners picked ores from wallrock and cobbed away waste material. They bagged the ores, which were sent to mills, sometimes as far away as England. The bags often netted US$400 per ton at a time when gold was only US$20 per oz. In all, the district produced 4.2 million oz. gold, plus significant copper, silver and lead, though most of the production occurred before 1920.
Two factors have kept the district from being reborn: the fragmented nature of the property distribution, and the erratic distribution of gold in small, high-grade oreshoots not suitable for bulk mining.
An old district, Goldfield was divided into hundreds of smaller patented claims, explains Romarco’s senior geologist, Robert Bennett.
“We spent the past three years trying to make deals with various owners,” he told The Northern Miner on a recent visit to the property. In that time, Romarco has amassed 15,000 acres at Goldfield in 33 separate land agreements. “That makes us the largest landholder in the history of the district,” he added.
“Almost every major has been to Goldfield,” Bennett said, “but no one could ever make a deal for much more than a few claims. They had another thing going against them, too: in the last 20 years, everyone has been looking for bulk-minable targets.”
The first serious attempt at bulk mining, after decades of only sporadic production, began with junior company Red Rock Mining. The company concentrated efforts on the main part of the district, opening up the Red Top and Combination-January pits beginning in 1993. Heap leaching produced 40,000 oz. annually, until the operation shut down in 1995.
Elsewhere in the district, Kennecott outlined an open-pit target in the Gemfield deposit, just north of the town of Goldfield. Though the deposit remained undeveloped, Kennecott later sold it to
In 1994, Nasdaq-listed American Resource took over Red Rock. Exploration and development work was played out in fits and starts under the new owner until 1996, when Toronto-listed Rea Gold swallowed up American Resource in a merger. Rea went bankrupt in December 1997, leaving the property up for grabs yet again. It was at that point that Romarco entered the scene.
However, Romarco began acquiring land only slowly. By August of last year, the company had concluded transactions with two local companies, Nevada Gold & Casino and TNT Nevada, to gain a majority land position in the district. Now, with the largest land holding in the district, Romarco has begun drilling.
Referring to the current drilling program, Bennet said: “We are looking for high-grade pods of mineralization like those the old-timers mined. If we are lucky, the payoff could be very substantial. These pods can be extremely high-grade. A single stope in one deposit contained 240,000 oz. gold averaging almost 20 oz. per ton.”
So far, Romarco has drilled 12 holes, concentrating efforts on the northwestern portion of the district. Three holes were drilled in the Kruger zone, four in the Kendall-Sandstorm zone, and two in the Adams zone. Then the company moved its rig to the central portion, sight of the COD zone.
In all, the company plans to complete 20,000 ft. of reverse-circulation drilling, with assay results (including check assays) expected in the next few months.
The work will also concentrate on the East Goldfield zone, where the company controls more than 6 miles of claims across the southern part of the district. In all, the company plans to spend US$1 million at the project.
Romarco came to Goldfield following its initial success at the Midas high-grade camp. Bennett convinced Romarco’s president, Joseph van Bastelaar, that Goldfield was one of the most underestimated and underexplored major gold camps left in Nevada.
“It looks like a brilliant move at these gold prices,” van Bastelaar said. “With gold less than US$260 per oz., the emphasis returns to grade.”
Goldfield is a classic high-sulphidation (acid sulphate) epithermal gold deposit, set within an Andean-type volcanic intrusive environment. Mineralization in the district is found in a semi-circular zone around the main intrusive, suggestiive of a ring-fracture in a caldera system. However, Goldfield did not experience any collapse along the ring fracture zone. The district is also within Walker Lane, a zone of right-lateral shearing and deformation running from Reno to Las Vegas.
Elsewhere in Walker Lane, Romarco has finished drilling the Red Rock gold property, 100 miles northwest of Goldfield.
Red Rock’s association with Walker Lane is more immediately apparent than at Goldfield. At Red Rock, Romarco holds 30 lease claims adjacent to a major fault zone associated with the right-lateral Death Valley-Furnace Creek Fault. Mineralization is hosted in a 6-million-year-old rhyolite flowdome.
Romarco recently completed 15 drillholes (totalling 10,780 ft.) at Red Rock, testing an easterly trending structure buried beneath thick alluvial gravels.
Drilling by a previous landholder encountered high-grade gold mineralization. The most significant hole hit 190 ft. averaging 0.3 oz. per ton, whereas another hole hit 15 ft. grading 0.92 oz. gold and 12 oz. silver per ton.
In 1998, Romarco followed up with drilling that encountered 115 ft. grading 1.6 oz. and 8 oz. silver per ton in hole RMR-4. Hole RMR-14 hit 40 ft. of 0.31 oz. gold per ton.
In all, Romarco has tested the structure over a strike length of more than 2,400 ft. The company expects assays from its most recent drilling by late June.
In northern Nevada, the company also just finished drilling 10 holes at the Jake Creek project west of the Midas district. The company hopes to capitalize on its experience in the area, as it looks for satellite deposits to Franco- and Euro-Nevada’s Ken Snyder mine.
In November 1998, Romarco sold its Midas project, adjacent to Ken Snyder, to Franco and Euro for $33 million.
This year’s drilling at Jake Creek attempted to locate feeder structures in an east-westerly trending fracture system, while testing for downward extensions of known mineralization. Gold-silver mineralization is hosted in a bimodal sequence of Miocene-aged mafic and felsic volcanic rocks. The company expects assay results by July.
For the summer, Romarco plans to scale back its exploration programs. Expenditures are expected to total $3.6 million, down from the original estimate of $4.2 million. The company still plans to drill the Converse joint venture, with
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