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Sunrise Resources (LON:SRES) has found bonanza grades of silver in underground samples at its Bay State project in Nevada.
The 18 samples were taken from the Chihuahua vein in an area previously inaccessible due to a rock-fall.
Average grades were over 1kg/tonne (kilogram per tonne) silver (1,123 grams per tonne or 33 ounces per tonne) along 230 metres (m) strike length to the end of the adit.
The samples included 4kg/tonne silver (4,020g/t or 117oz/t) in a 2ft section.
Base metals of up to 10% combined lead-zinc-copper were also recorded.
Sunrise said the Chihuahua Vein is now known to carry high grade silver over the 470m sampling length, and is open to the north and south.
Sampling was mainly restricted to vein widths, which vary up to 1.5m along the adit. No wall rock sampling was conducted.
The drill plan is being revised to focus exclusively on the Chihuahua vein.
Patrick Cheetham, executive chairman, said: "These are outstanding results. The records of production from this mine are scant but we assume it was very high grade.
“The confirmation of bedded style mineralisation containing bonanza silver grades, and previously sampled at surface, presents an exciting additional target with excellent tonnage potential."
Bay State is a historic site mined for silver in the 1870s and again in the 1900s, when work focused on Chihuahua and Buckeye State, which together cover a strike length of some 900m.
The mine workings include a 250m long adit (Chihuahua) driven north along the Chihuahua Vein from the canyon floor.
A rock-fall blocked this adit 28m down, but Sunrise employed a specialist team to break through to the surface and take samples.
“It was unusual to find high grades left behind by old–timers,” said Cheetham.“To find the same bedded style of mineralisation we found on the surface 250m into the hillside was really positive.”
This bedded style of mineralisation was not worked for silver in the early days of the mine he added.
Next will be a drilling programme at Chihuahua that should get underway if permits come through over the next 4-6 weeks and cost a modest £100,000-120,000.
Northland was very enthusiastic over the results suggesting that it was “difficult to imagine a more promising set of results.”
“Historical records also indicate the presence of high grade silver bearing splay faults associated with the Chihuahua Vein as well as stockwork silver mineralisation over significant widths.
“Much more work is required before we can speculate on the potential value of the rediscovery,” it added, but the shares jumped more than 40% to 0.305p even so..