A look at the pre-resource gold explorers at the Gold Forum Americas
Some earlier stage stories among the producers and developers
Southern Cross Gold
Southern Cross managing director Michael Hudson described the Sunday Creek gold discovery in Victoria, Australia, as one of the most exciting new gold finds globally.
“That measure of discovery success can be looked at in terms of how many very good intersections – let’s say 100 gram metre intersections – divided by the amount of drilling,” he told the Gold Forum Americas this week.
Of 131 holes drilled for 52km at Sunday Creek, Southern Cross has had 45 individual intersections of over 100 gram metres.
“That’s an extremely high hit rate and in fact, I haven’t seen anything else like that globally,” Hudson said.
Results have included 455.3m at 7.2 grams per tonne gold, including 1m at 2318g/t gold and 331.5m at 6.8g/t gold, including 13.1m at 91.7g/t gold.
There are five rigs on site at Sunday Creek, which is just 60km north of Melbourne, with a sixth arriving next month.
Southern Cross will drill 60km over the next year, double the previous year.
Hudson said the company had only tested 3% of the discovery.
Mineralisation has been intersected to 1km depth. The nearby Costerfield and Fosterville deposits are at least 2km deep.
“We’ve got a long way to go,” Hudson said.
In January, Southern Cross set an exploration target of 1-1.6 million ounces at 7.2-9.7g/t gold equivalent (including antimony).
The target has been increased to 3Moz at 10g/t and Hudson said the company wanted to reach that point before putting out a formal resource estimate.
“We are running an internal resource and updating it monthly,” he said.
Founders Metals
Toronto-listed Founders Metals secured an option over the Antino project in Suriname last year.
The project has had 32,000m of historical drilling as well as more than 500,000 ounces of gold produced by artisanal miners.
Founders raised C$10 million in May, enough to fund around 45,000m of drilling this year.
The company has three rigs operating with a fourth to come and there are 60-65 people on site.
“We’re paying under C$200 per metre, including assays, so we’re pretty proud of that,” Founders CEO Colin Padget said of the drilling.
Padget said the Guiana Shield was analogous to West Africa’s Birimian Shield.
The Guiana Shield has a current gold inventory of 110Moz of gold, compared to the over 275Moz in West Africa.
“There hasn’t been the same level of work in the Guiana Shield,” Padget said.
“I think there will be a number of tier one assets come out of here in the next 5-10 years for sure.”
Newmont’s 7Moz Merian mine is to the north of Antino.
The Froyo zone at Upper Antino returned recent results including 10m at 24.6g/t gold, 14m at 16.26g/t gold, and 45.8m at 4.06g/t gold.
“We’ve had a lot of really fantastic success,” Padget said.
“What we have here is very similar to what they have at Merian.”
To the southeast, the Buese zone has returned high-grade grab samples and results from the first drilling is due shortly.
“Our geos call it the best outcrops is Suriname,” Padget said.
Solitario Resources
US-listed Solitario Resources Corp holds zinc resources but its emerging gold project was the topic of its presentation this week.
The company holds the Golden Crest project in South Dakota.
“This is the most interesting early stage gold project I’ve ever seen,” CEO Chris Herald.
South Dakota’s Northern Black Hills is home to a 90Moz gold endowment, including the Homestake mine
“A lot of people don’t realize that South Dakota, historically, was the third largest producer in the United States behind Nevada and California,” Herald said.
“This is a fabulous gold district.”
Newmont owns 8.7% of Solitario following an US$2.5 million investment at a premium last year.
Golden Crest covers 35,000 acres to the west of Coeur Mining’s 8.5Moz Wharf mine.
“There’s been almost no exploration,” Herald said.
There hadn’t been drill hole on the project in 150 years even though it’s proximity to some of the biggest mines in the US.
Solitario has been working at Golden Crest for three years.
This week it reported the results for the first three drill holes with results of 26.4m grading 2.6g/t gold, including 14.4m at 4.2g/t, and 32m at 1.7g/t gold, including 14.2m at 3.1g/t.
Herald described the intersections as great first results.
“These numbers compare really well with what is being mined close to us,” he said.
Just two of Solitario’s eight high-priority targets have been permitted for drilling to date.
“We’ve got a lot of fertile ground to drill in 2025,” Herald said.
“Four of our five most exciting targets will be drilled next year.”