Shares in the company rose more than 42% on the news yesterday, closing up C12.5c to 42c to capitalise it at $8.7 million (US$6.6 million).

The above-mentioned result from 143.3m also included 13.7m at 5.1g/t and was among assays from the first four RC holes from its 8-hole winter drilling programme.

Samples from the remaining holes have been submitted for assaying.

President and CEO James Hesketh said he was extremely pleased with the initial results, saying they had been successful in meeting the goal to infill known gaps in the existing drilling and confirm extensions to the known mineralised structures.

"We believe that the successes we are seeing in this overall programme will significantly improve confidence in the resource and should add a substantial number of contained ounces to our estimated resource base, ultimately increasing the Tonopah gold resource to our goal of 1 million contained ounces," he said.

Tonopah has an in-pit constrained measured and indicated resource of 6.7 million tonnes at 0.95g/t for 186,000oz.

The inferred resource stands at 9.6Mt at 0.77g/t for 238,000oz.

Previous operator Midway Gold had done several studies to support potential future surface and/or underground mining operations, Viva said.

The company had cash and equivalents of $109,020 (US$82,000) at July 31, then completed a $1.1 million (US$830,000) raising in November at 37c per unit towards Tonopah exploration and for general working capital.

Its shares had traded as high as 50c last February but sank to a 52-week low of 21c in April.