Session Details
PDAC Thayer Lindsley Award recipient: AngloGold Ashanti
Silicon is a Greenfields discovery made by AngloGold Ashanti (AGA), Renaissance Gold and Callinan located 12 km northeast of Beatty, in southwestern Nevada. The deposit was first encountered by AGA during a 2016 meeting at PDAC in which a project generator company, Renaissance Gold (partially financed by Callinan), presented five properties for consideration in a possible joint venture. The project was optioned in June 2017 and the discovery hole drilled in February-March 2018. At time of AGA’s entry, Silicon was viewed as a large area of pervasive, geochemically barren, high-level steam-heated alteration that had received minimal modern exploration. The key geological decision in the discovery was to treat the broad alteration pattern as a bonanza vein opportunity, targeting the deeper parts of chalcedony veins, interpreted as a fluid upflow zone, beneath the area of most intense steam-heated alteration; these were localized along the Silicon-Tramway fault. Discovery of the nearby Merlin deposit, initially by Coeur Mining, followed a couple of years afterward. AGA subsequently acquired both Coeur and Corvus Gold, consolidating the district. The current Mineral Resource as of December 31, 2024, at the Arthur Gold Project (previously known as the Expanded Silicon Project which includes Merlin and Silicon) stands at 122 M tonnes averaging 0.87 g/t Au, 3.98 g/t Ag Indicated Mineral Resource with additional 391 M tonnes averaging 1.03 g/t Au, 2.01 g/t Ag Inferred Mineral Resource. This equates to a total of 3.40 million ounces Au, 15.4 million ounces Ag Indicated Mineral Resource and 12.91 million ounces Au, 25.29 million ounces Ag Inferred Mineral Resource (AGA Mineral Resource and Mineral Reserve Report, 2025). Exploration and project advancement are continuing, and the deposit remains open with additional sulphide potential at depth.
Ultimately, the discovery of Silicon demonstrates the importance of patience to secure the tenure (Renaissance) and the foresight of AGA to recognise the potential of an opportunity that did not fit standard models for gold-bearing systems. Willingness to use different thinking on what was then considered an opportunity with moderate potential is what led to the discovery. The 2026 Thayer Lindsley award therefore represents a closing of the circle from the initial PDAC meeting between AGA and Renaissance Gold literally to the day ten years ago.
9 a.m. - 10 a.m.
Discovery of the Silicon and Merlin gold-silver deposits: Closing the circle
Presenter(s):
Paul Bartos, AngloGold Ashanti
