Gold Resource Corporation Acquires Golden Mile Property In Walker Lane Mineral Belt


COLORADO SPRINGS, CO - Gold Resource Corporation reported the acquisition of the Golden Mile property located in the Bell Mining District, Mineral County, Nevada. The 9,334 acre property contains surface and near surface high-grade gold in two established mineralized zones. Historic third-party drill intercepts from Golden Mile include: 10.70 meters of 8.76 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from surface, 36.60 meters of 10.26 g/t gold from 15.20 meters downhole, and 6.10 meters of 46.53 g/t gold from 18.29 meters downhole. Golden Mile is an advanced exploration property with district-size potential for expansion of known mineralized zones and new discoveries. The property also adds considerably to the Company’s prospective exploration land package by more than 51%. This fifth high-grade property solidifies the Company’s Nevada Mining Unit as controlling a dominant land position in this region of the Walker Lane Mineral Belt.

The Company acquired 100% interest in the Golden Mile property from two separate business entities. The sellers retained a net smelter return royalty (NSR) of 3% on future production from the property claims. The Company has the right to buy down 1% of the NSR on the claims for US$1,500,000.

The Golden Mile property covers an area of 9,334 acres consisting of 451 unpatented lode mining claims and 5 patented mining claims in central Nevada’s Walker Lane Mineral Belt in Mineral county, Nevada. Two established mineralized zones have been drilled by previous operators on the property with the larger mineralized zone located within the 5 patented claims. The property is located approximately 23 miles east-southeast of the Company’s producing Isabella Pearl mine and becomes the fifth property in the Company’s Nevada Mining Unit. The Company’s Nevada Mining Unit now controls approximately 27,600 acres of highly prospective exploration land in south central Nevada’s Walker Lane Mineral Belt.

Mineralization at Golden Mile is intrusion related gold-copper exo- and endoskarn associated with massive replacements of carbonate rocks and shear hosted gold. Historical 1930’s production records show gold along with minor copper and silver being produced from small open pits and shallow underground workings.

The Company’s acquisition criteria for numerous reasons including: high-grade gold drill results, low-cost open pit heap leach project potential, proximity to the Company’s producing Isabella Pearl gold mine for operational synergies, large land package containing two advanced exploration target zones of gold mineralization, numerous additional exploration targets, and preliminary metallurgical test work indicating cyanide leachability.

Management plans to secure exploration drill permits and commence follow-up drill programs in the near future focusing on the two established mineralized zones, the Golden Mile zone and PS-SP zone, with the goal to delineate both into mineable open pit heap leach deposits. While the district-size potential has numerous exploration targets, at this point management will focus on the known mineralized zones with high probability resource delineation based on the past third-party drill results and historic preliminary resource estimates. With successful follow-up and delineation drilling, Golden Mile could become one of the next mines to be developed from the Nevada Mining Unit after the Isabella Pearl mine. During due diligence, the Company also commissioned preliminary metallurgical test work which included cyanide bottle-roll tests yielding results of 82% gold recovery, demonstrating that gold mineralization is amenable to cyanide leaching.

Barry Devlin, Vice President of Exploration, said, “We continue to evaluate numerous opportunities in Nevada, and are excited to have acquired the Golden Mile property within our Nevada Mining Unit’s area of influence. This property not only demonstrates exceptional gold grades from prior third-party drill programs, such as six meters of 46 grams per tonne gold starting less than twenty meters below the surface, but its district scale hosts numerous targets beyond the two known zones of mineralization. Mineralization at Golden Mile also appears genetically related to a gold-bearing copper-iron skarn-forming event and may resemble gold rich skarns in the Battle Mountain District of Nevada. We are looking forward to building on the exploration database and third-party preliminary resources on the Golden Mile property with a near-term goal of delineating at least two high-grade open pit gold deposits.”

“This acquisition of another near surface high-grade gold property substantially adds to our Nevada Mining Unit, strengthens our prospective land position and provides additional optionality for the Company in the future,” said CEO and President, Jason Reid. “Our plan with this property, optimistically assuming successful delineation of the known mineralized zones into economic deposits, provides optionality which could include designing and permitting the Golden Mile as a project and process plant without an ADR facility which takes gold loaded carbon into gold dore. By only permitting a plant that takes gold to a loaded carbon stage and then hauling the carbon a short distance up the road to our Isabella Pearl mine’s ADR facility for dore production, we could save permitting time, engineering and construction costs and leverage our already permitted and operating ADR facility for plant longevity. In addition, with the largest known mineralized zone at Golden Mile on patented ground, permitting may take less time than otherwise expected. While we are very excited with the district acquisition of the Golden Mile high-grade gold property, we are not taking our eye off the ball for exploration at our East Camp Douglas property and still plan to commence our first drill program this year as scheduled. We are currently drilling the Scarlet target located next to our operating Isabella Pearl mine. We have and continue to build what I believe to be the most exciting land position for high-grade gold exploration in this region of Nevada, and we are positioning to continue to be a Nevada gold producer for a very long time.”