The Northern Miner reported this week that Arizona Gold & Silver has pulled high-grade gold and silver from two new core holes beneath the Red Hills target at its Philadelphia project in Mohave County, Arizona, the same ground the company has been expanding since it first outlined the zone. The company detailed the assays in its own September 30 release.
- Arizona Gold & Silver announced assay results on September 30 from two core holes beneath Red Hills at its Philadelphia gold-silver project in Mohave County, Arizona.
- Hole PC26-173 cut 43.59 metres at 1.48 grams per tonne gold, including a higher-grade run of 7.04 metres at 4.24 grams per tonne gold and 15.2 grams per tonne silver.
- Hole PC26-172 cut 70.41 metres at 1.16 grams per tonne gold, including 2.87 metres at 4.92 grams per tonne gold.
- Both holes extend gold mineralization downdip within the Perry Zone, pointing toward a north-plunging upflow zone the company is still defining.
- The company says it is evaluating both an underground, higher-grade scenario and a larger, lower-grade open-pit scenario; it is still early in the exploration program, and no resource estimate exists yet.
What did the drilling find beneath Red Hills?
Both holes targeted the bulk tonnage zone beneath Red Hills and landed in the same style of mineralization: green, quartz-rich hydrothermal breccia carrying disseminated gold and silver. PC26-173, drilled from 445.62 to 489.20 metres, returned 43.59 metres at 1.48 g/t gold and 7.2 g/t silver, with a richer core of 7.04 metres at 4.24 g/t gold and 15.2 g/t silver near the bottom of the hole. PC26-172, drilled from 416.97 to 487.38 metres, returned a longer but lower-grade interval of 70.41 metres at 1.16 g/t gold and 5.6 g/t silver, with two higher-grade pockets inside it. Dr. Lex Lambeck, the company’s senior vice president of exploration, said the holes “continue to intersect broad zones of gold mineralization with higher-grade intervals,” a pattern the company has now logged across several holes beneath the target.
Why does the Perry Zone geology matter here?
The breccia hosting both intercepts sits within what the company calls the Perry Zone, part of a low-sulfidation epithermal system along a roughly three-kilometre structural corridor at Philadelphia, in the historic Oatman mining district. The silver-to-gold ratio in each interval helps the exploration team trace where the higher-grade core of the system sits inside the broader, lower-grade envelope, since silver and gold tend to concentrate at different depths and temperatures within an epithermal system like this one. The company says the results extend mineralization downdip and support a north-plunging upflow zone, the kind of structural trend exploration geologists chase when they are trying to grow a deposit rather than just confirm one hole.
That matters because Red Hills is still a target, not a defined deposit. The company has not published a resource estimate for the zone, and it is explicitly weighing two very different outcomes: a smaller, higher-grade underground mine built around the richest intervals, or a larger, lower-grade open pit built around the broader envelope. Which path makes sense depends on drilling still to come.
What comes next at Philadelphia?
Arizona Gold & Silver says hole PC26-174 has finished drilling with assays pending, and PC26-175 is underway roughly 60 metres north of PC26-173, continuing the step-out pattern beneath Red Hills. Dr. Lambeck’s technical disclosure covers the qualified-person sign-off behind the assays. Silver, the metal riding alongside the gold at Red Hills, is also central to the electronics and solar manufacturing that depend on domestic supply, one more reason exploration in Mohave County draws attention beyond the immediate drill results.
Philadelphia sits in Arizona’s Mohave County, far from the copper belt that dominates the state’s mining identity, a reminder that the Copper State’s gold and silver districts, Oatman among them, have their own long history and their own active exploration right now. Further step-out and infill drilling will determine whether Red Hills grows into a standalone deposit or folds into a larger plan for the Philadelphia project as a whole.