Marmota Ltd (ASX:MEU) has received bonanza gold grades of up to 70 g/t in drilling at the Aurora Tank Project in South Australia which has also revealed multiple high-grade extensions.
The eighth drilling program at Aurora was completed in September and recorded the company’s best ever 4-metre composite gold intersections including:
- 4 metres at 70 g/t gold from 64 metres downhole [Hole 20ATRC324] and;
- 4 metres at 25 g/t from 52 metres downhole [Hole 20ATRC224].
Hole 20ATRC324 is 130 metres northeast of a previous intersection of 5 metres at 27 g/t in hole 18AT104 and together they form what the company considers to be a contiguous high-grade domain close to surface.
“Aurora Tank keeps growing”
Marmota chairman Dr Colin Rose said: “This program has yielded new high-grade extensions to the north, west and at depth, significantly extended the NW flank and yielded our current highest 4-metre intersection.
“I am delighted that Aurora Tank keeps on growing, that underlying fundamentals are strong and so too the potential rewards to shareholders.
“Aurora Tank is fortunate to combine high-grade intersections that are close to surface, with excellent metallurgy, making Aurora Tank potentially amenable to low-cost low capex open-pittable heap leach methods, which are our clear focus.”
New high-grade extensions
The drilling also determined high-grade extensions to the north with the NW Flank strike length increasing three-fold in just one year.
A year ago the NW flank was known to extend approximately 95 metres in a northeast direction and at the end of this program, now extends about three times that distance (285 metres) in a north-easterly direction and remains open along strike.
The last hole drilled at the very top (north) of the NW flank [Hole 20ATRC313] yielded 4 metres at 9.2 g/t (80 metres downhole) and remains open.
Location of new NW flank and new high grade Intersections
High-grade gold at depth
While Marmota has mostly intersected very high grades close to the surface, typically just 20 metres to 50 metres from surface, this program is the first time the company has also intersected high-grade gold at depths below 80 metres.
Hole 20ATRC303 was designed to test for an extension to the west of the NW flank and intersected 4 metres at 7.3 g/t at a depth of 120 metres downhole.
Marmota believes follow-up drilling is necessary as this intersection may be indicative of the presence of high-grade shoots.
The presence of high gold grades at depth is considered encouraging when combined with the reported results from the mineragraphic test-work in May 2020 where gold grains sampled from a high-grade intersection found the grains to be predominantly primary mineralisation with the colour indicating high purity gold.
In combination, this suggests that their host mineralised lodes can be expected to geologically continue to depth below the zone currently drilled.
Looking forwards
At Aurora Tank, Marmota will be collecting detailed 1-metre samples over all intersections of interest which will be assayed for resource estimation work.
The company is also seeking to commence ecological surveys (fauna and flora) and hydrology work (including to supply water at Aurora Tank) that are also necessary components to seeking a mining lease.
Additionally, Marmota has started the first work funded by a $225,000 grant by the South Australian Government under the Accelerated Discovery Initiative (ADI).
This includes a program of calcrete and biogeochemical sampling and modelling surface expressions of geochemical/biogeochemical anomalism in relation to underlying mineralisation across several tenements - including Aurora Tank.