As the European debt crisis captured headlines around the world the markets, as expected, were volatile this week. And resource stocks, in particular, were under pressure. Despite the images of buildings burning in Athens, equity markets were resilient and closed the week with modest gains.

The big stories this week came from the junior gold mining sector as some big drill results hit the street and resulted in some strong gains for some junior miners.

Shares of GTA Resources & Mining Inc. (Stock Profile – TSXV:GTA) took-off on Tuesday when the company announced results from a drilling program on the Northshore property near Schreiber, Ontario. Results included 149.5 metres grading 3.21 g/t gold (uncapped) or 1.20 g/t gold (capped).

For the capped results, the company cut high-grade values to 28.79 g/t gold, representing the 99th percentile of all drill core assay values obtained from the 2011 drill program. On Friday, GTA announced a brokered private placement of $4-million in common share units and flow-through shares. The financing is being undertaken on a best-efforts basis by a syndicate of brokers.

GTA’s stock closed the week at $1.22, up 480%, while trading more than 15 million shares – more than the issued and outstanding common shares of the company. GTA has an option agreement with Balmoral Resources Ltd. (Stock Profile – TSXV:BAR & OTC:BALMF), whereby GTA Resources can earn a 70% interest in the Northshore project from Balmoral by spending $5.5-million on exploration expenditures, issuing 3.5 million shares to Balmoral and making cash payments totalling $150,000. In 2011, MiningFeeds connected with Darin Wagner, President & CEO of Balmoral Resources, for the exclusive interview – CLICK HERE.

Also on Tuesday, but somewhat overshadowed by the news from GTA Resources, shares of Volta Resources Inc. (Stock Profile – TSX:VTR) moved up sharply after the gold junior reported the discovery of new high-grade gold mineralization situated approximately 700 metres southwest of its Kiaka Central Area deposit in Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso is formerly known as the Republic of Upper Volta and is the etymology of this junior miner. Results from Volta’s announcement, including 25.0 metres of 9.22 g/t gold, were well received by the market. The company’s shares closed this week at $1.55, up 36% on nearly 10 million shares of volume.

This week also saw another micro-cap mining stock posting big gains on big volume. On Wednesday, shares of Metals Creek Resources Corp. (Stock Profile – TSXV:MEK) jumped 35% to 11.5 cents on volume of more than 12.6 million shares after the company reported final assay results from its 2011 Ogden Gold project drill program in Timmins, Ontario. Results included an intercept of 1.92 g/t gold over 94.0 meters between a depth of 78 metres and 172 metres.

The Ogden Gold project is under option from Goldcorp Inc. (Stock Profile – TSX:G & NYSE:GG). Metals Creek can earn a 50% interest in the project by incurring $3.1 million in expenditures and issuing a combination of cash and shares totaling $460,000 over four years. Shares of Metals Creek closed the week at $0.125 up 47%.