Marmota expands drilling program at high-grade SA gold target

Marmota Limited has extended its maiden drilling program at its proven gold-mineralised Greenewood prospect in the northwestern part of the company’s extensive multi-commodity Gawler Craton tenements in South Australia.

It now plans to drill about 12,500 metres at an average downhole depth of 90m to deliver a maiden campaign far surpassing all the previous drilling metres put into the Greenewood prospect.

Marmota’s reverse circulation drilling rig at the company’s 90 per cent-owned Greenewood project in South Australia’s Gawler Craton.

The company has so far completed 61 holes in July for 5108m, with the drilling crew averaging about 284m per day. Marmota expects to continue the program for a further four to five weeks.

The company flagged its drilling proposal and launched its new program in early July, following a detailed review of Greenewood’s historic data.

‘Marmota’s Gawler gold project is progressing beautifully. We are delighted to carry out our maiden program at the nearby Greenewood gold deposit.’

Marmota Limited chairman Dr Colin Rose

The review found that gold mineralisation was discovered at the prospect during ASX-listed Tyranna Resources’ 2016 reverse circulation drilling campaign to follow up anomalous gold results from a 2003 rotary air-blast (RAB) drilling program.

Tyranna drilled the prospect further in 2017 and 2018, before moving away from gold to pursue lithium in Angola. Marmota acquired Tyranna’s South Australian gold assets in 2020-2021.

Tantalisingly, Marmota’s reappraisal of the old gold assays during its recent data review unveiled some serious hits in Tyranna’s reverse circulation drill tests. These include a best run in one hole of 1 metre assaying 53 grams per tonne (g/t) gold within a wider interval of 14m at 6g/t gold.

A second hole hit 1m going 37g/t gold within a wider interval of 22m at 4g/t gold, while a third hole nailed 1m running 21g/t gold in a broader interval of 13m at 3.4g/t gold. A fourth hole bored through a further 1m interval assaying 29g/t within a 5m intercept going 10g/t gold.

With numbers such as these, it is not surprising Marmota has taken the plunge on Greenewood and committed extra metreage to its new program.

Marmota Limited chairman Dr Colin Rose said: “Marmota’s Gawler gold project is progressing beautifully. As our flagship Aurora Tank gold deposit progresses through production-related studies, we are delighted to carry out our maiden program at the nearby Greenewood gold deposit.”

Greenewood had not been drilled in the seven years since Tyranna’s final program – until Marmota kicked off its purposeful assault earlier this month.

The company initially proposed to drill about 127 reverse circulation holes for about 10,000m of drilling, with an average downhole depth of about 79m.

Historically, 12 RAB holes were drilled for 372m, as well as 109 reverse circulation holes for 7109m and five diamond core holes for 764m, for a combined total of 8254m.

Greenewood is part of Marmota’s Gawler Craton project and its Golden Moon joint venture, which comprises two partly contiguous exploration licences in the joint venture tenement suite.

The two licences are about 20 kilometres northwest of Marmota’s fully owned flagship Aurora Tank project, for which metallurgical testwork has demonstrated exceptional gold recoveries of up to 93 per cent in column leach tests.

The Golden Moon ground, in which Marmota holds a 90 per cent interest, encloses four gold targets across both licences. These targets include Campfire Bore, which came up with bonanza gold to 107g/t at 57m below surface, five intercepts over 20g/t, and 13 intercepts exceeding 10g/t gold from the company’s first drilling program.

Its nearby Mainwood target encouragingly appears to be a potential strike extension from Greenewood, which is less than 2km to the northeast. The company’s fourth target, Golf Bore, lies in a separate part of the fragmented tenement group, 10km north-northwest of Aurora Tank, and is yet to be tested.

Including Aurora Tank, Campfire Bore, Greenewood, Mainwood and Golf Bore, Marmota has assembled an impressive suite of gold targets within a good stone’s throw of each other, with at least the first three of these already showing promise.

The underlying gold fundamentals, with current gold prices of about $5200, are still performing well in Marmota’s favour. The gold price was about $1600 in 2018, when drilling was last undertaken at Greenewood.

The company is continuing with its production-related studies for Aurora Tank, with an eye on delivering a mineral resource estimate when it has a good handle on the drilling numbers and metallurgical parameters that will determine an optimal processing path.

Marmota’s rapidly developing pipeline of adjacent gold targets may also represent meaningful economies of scale for development plans at Aurora Tank and further possible expansion of its Gawler gold project.

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