High-grade hits double SA Greenwood gold strike for Marmota

Marmota has scooped the pool again, hitting paydirt at the northeastern end of its recent Greenewood discovery in South Australia’s Gawler Craton and doubling the known high-grade gold strike length to more than two kilometres.

Just 25 days after unveiling its first crop of high-grade gold from maiden drilling in the southern part of the system, dubbed the Mainwood zone, the company has now tabled spectacular results from the opposite end of the gold system, off the northeastern end of its adjoining Greenewood deposit.

Standout hits include an eight-metre intercept assaying 11.5 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 184m downhole, featuring a richer four-metre chunk grading a sizzling 15g/t gold. A second hole, 80m southwest of that headline result, returned 8m going at 10g/t gold from 152m, including a four-metre hit at a blistering 18g/t gold.

The similar runs, grades, depths and the considerable lateral separation of those two holes point to a remarkable consistency within the new extension of the Greenewood deposit.

Perhaps more notably, both of those intercepts sit a lot deeper than the majority of Marmota’s drilling. The first landed at an estimated 160m vertical depth below surface, while the second came in at 132m below surface, well beyond the 75m to 95m depths reached by much of the earlier Greenewood drilling.

Adding to the excitement, the deepest and most northeasterly of the new results delivered 12m assaying 3.4g/t gold, including 4m going a pretty spicy 9.6g/t from 236m downhole, or an estimated 210m vertical depth below surface.

That depth persistence across the three holes opens up two possibilities, or maybe even a combination of both. The mineralisation could be plunging northeast, pointing to a deeper extension of the high-grade system. However, with much of the southern Greenewood strike yet to be tested at comparable depths, the latest results also raise the tantalising prospect that gold mineralisation could extend to twice the depths drilled so far across a much bigger portion of the deposit.

The latest results are the second batch of assays from the company’s massive 337-hole, 32,085m reverse circulation (RC) drilling assault on the Greenewood-Mainwood mineralisation, which was completed in mid-October. The company says the findings from both the northern and southern extensions - from Greenewood to Mainwood - have already dramatically expanded the contiguous high-grade mineralisation, which remains wide open to the northeast and at depth, with little sign of the mineralisation running out of steam.

The program has encountered high-grade gold in the majority of extensional holes along strike to the northeast, successfully extending the overall high-grade deposit out by a further 500m along strike. Other notable results from the northeastern drilling include 12m at 4.5g/t gold from 132m downhole depth, including 4m at 13g/t gold and a shallow hit of 4m at 12.5 g/t gold from just 92m depth.

Management says it has now tracked high-grade gold almost contiguously from within 16m of surface to a downhole depth of 240m and that the combined Greenewood and Mainwood strike now extends for more than 2km and remains open.

Marmota says its Greenewood discovery is yielding some of the best results seen in the region since Challenger’s discovery. Challenger was discovered in 1995 and went on to produce more than one million ounces, providing a useful regional benchmark for the significance of a new high-grade system.

The discovery lies 30km northeast of the Challenger gold mine and 35km northwest of Marmota’s own Aurora Tank gold deposit, all within the highly prospective Gawler Craton. Greenewood is part of the Golden Moon Joint Venture, in which Marmota holds a 90 per cent interest.

The company says the deposit shows remarkable geological continuity and predictability, a feature that could be a significant advantage as it moves towards a resource estimate. That estimate will mark the beginning of a maiden scoping study for the broader Gawler gold project.

Even before all the results are in, this program is already an outstanding success. To the north, Marmota extended out some 20 section lines along strike, hitting almost contiguous high-grade gold, without any sign yet of the high-grade gold diminishing. Greenewood remains completely open to the North.

With gold trading above A$6000 per ounce through October, the combination of strong grades, shallow mineralisation and an expanding, open strike is almost guaranteed to attract attention.

Assays are still rolling in from Marmota’s massive drilling campaign across both ends of the Greenewood-Mainwood trend, as the company rapidly pieces together what could be a substantial gold system. And with high-grade mineralisation remaining open in multiple directions, the full scale of this Gawler Craton discovery has yet to be fully defined.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au