Buffalo Hump

Project Summary

A project with documented high-grade gold, a reported 1996 near-surface estimate of more than 96,000 oz gold, and has never been drilled below 300 feet. It sits about 6 miles north of the Bruner project, which Endeavour Silver bought for US$10 million in 2021.

Highlights

• Reported 1996 estimate. Nevada’s state geological survey reported a near-surface estimate of more than 96,000 oz gold on the property, with a best drill hole of 0.303 oz/t gold over 40 feet.
• Untested at depth. No hole has gone below 300 feet. The surface geochemistry and alteration point to the upper levels of an epithermal vein system.
• Proven district. The Bruner project, 6 miles south in the same volcanic center and host rock, was bought by Endeavour Silver for US$10 million cash in 2021. Newmont, Atlas, Miramar and Cabot have all explored the area.
• Simple ground position. Unpatented claims owned outright on BLM land in Nevada, with road access and no dwellings nearby.

Location, access and claims

The project is in the Eastgate mining district, at the south end of the Desatoya Mountains in southeast Churchill County, Nevada. Fallon, about 70 road miles away via US-50, is the nearest full-service town.

• Elevation: about 6,500 to 6,900 ft
• Land: BLM-administered public land; unpatented lode claims owned outright by Stream Metals LLC
• Climate: arid; work is possible year round

Geology and mineralization

Buffalo Hump is a low-sulphidation epithermal gold-silver system in Miocene volcanic rocks, the same deposit type as Round Mountain, Rawhide and the neighboring Bruner deposits.

• Host rocks: altered rhyolite (latite) crystal tuff over pyroxene andesite flows, with rhyolitic ash-fall tuffs and tuff breccia. The stratigraphy matches Bruner, where the same tuff hosts disseminated gold.
• Structure: steep faults striking N45°W and N30°E, plus curved faults that suggest a caldera margin around the Buffalo Mountain vent complex just to the south. Fault zones are 5 to 20 ft wide with breccia and gouge. A northeast magnetic trend more than 50 km long runs through the area.
• Alteration: intense argillic (clay) alteration and bleaching, silicification, and widespread limonite and iron-oxide staining. Pyrite (1–3%) appears below about 100 ft, the base of oxidation.
• Mineralization: free gold and native silver in quartz pods and veins along northeast-striking faults, with lead and copper. Quartz pods assay at least 0.5 oz/t gold; fault breccia and gouge run up to about 0.05 oz/t.
• Grades: historical samples range from 0.01 to 34.95 oz/t gold and 0.5 to 15 oz/t silver. Best reported drill result: 0.303 oz/t gold over 40 ft (1996).
• Geochemistry: soil and rock sampling outlined an oval mercury, antimony, arsenic, silver and gold anomaly over the Buffalo Hump hill, with a tail to the south. Mercury and antimony anomalies like this typically mark the top of an epithermal system, with the richest boiling-zone veins at depth.

The workings total more than 1,500 ft: several adits (the longest about 400 ft), an inclined shaft, drifts, crosscuts, winzes, raises and stopes, plus the foundation of an old mill.

History and past work

Buffalo Hump produced high-grade ore from the 1930s and drew four rounds of modern exploration between 1984 and 1996, all of it shallow.

Since the 1930s some gold has also been recovered intermittently by small-scale methods.

Historical estimate

The Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology’s annual review The Nevada Mineral Industry 1996 reported that the property contains “a near-surface resource of over 96,000 oz of gold,” citing a trade report dated May 1, 1996. The USGS mineral deposit database (MRDS) carries the same figure for the Buffalo Hump mine.