The share price of TSX-V-listed explorer Great Bear Resources spiked 64% on Wednesday, after the company announced a new high-grade gold discovery in the Hinge zone of its Dixie project, in the Red Lake district of Ontario.

Drill results in hole DHZ-003 returned 16.35 m of 26.91 g/t gold, including separate sub-intervals of 5.05 m of 51.39 g/t gold and 1 m of 112.63 g/t gold.

A follow-up hole below BHZ-003 intersected higher-grade gold mineralisation, returning 7 m of 44.47 g/t gold, including 2 m of 143.24 g/t, including 1 m of 224.03 g/t.

“We recently recognised the potential for a transformative discovery at Great Bear’s Dixie project when we noted structurally controlled high grade gold within quartz veins, flanked by red-brown hydrothermal biotite alteration. These features, combined with increased grades and zone thicknesses at fold hinges, are key characteristics of high grade gold deposits currently in production in Red Lake. The missing piece at Dixie was whether we would also see gold enrichment at fold hinges at our project. We tested the fold hinge concept at shallow depths of approximately 100 vertical metres and successfully generated the high-grade gold results announced today,” said Great Bear CEO Chris Taylor.

VP for exploration R. Bob Singh continued that Great Bear made the current discovery by analysing structural data collected from oriented drill core, which pointed the company to a local D2 fold hinge.

“Our first hole, DHZ-003, encountered a wide interval of quartz veining with visible gold and we immediately followed up with a second hole, DHZ-004, which also hit the zone and encountered even stronger grades. In total the Hinge zone has been intersected in eight drill holes over 70 vertical metres, all of which contain high grade gold. The zone remains open in all directions,” he said.

A further 5 000 m of the current 10 000-m drill programme, as well as an estimated 20 to 25 drill holes still have to be completed in the fully-funded 2018 summer drill programme.

Great Bear traded as high as C$1.35 a share following the release of the exploration results and closed at C$1.18 a share – 64% higher than the previous day’s closing price of C$0.72 apiece.