Barton Gold is set to launch into a new drilling campaign at its Tarcoola gold project in South Australia, with a recent geophysical survey identifying ten, shallow, near-mine targets for testing. The company has already issued a 10,000 metre drilling contract, with the rods set to start turning towards the end of July 2020 and continue through into September 2020.
The move into drilling follows hot on the heels of the unlisted company’s recent $3.75 million capital raise which left it perfectly placed to take advantage of the high gold price that is currently sitting at over A$2,575 an ounce. The company’s current focus is to expand its resource inventory at Tarcoola which will allow it to pull the covers off the old Challenger mill about 130km away and feed it with Tarcoola open pit ore.
Barton’s 100%-owned Tarcoola gold project is located 600 km northwest of Adelaide in South Australia. The project consists of 1,200 km2of prime exploration ground in the revered Gawler Craton with easy access to the company’s Challenger mill.
A recently completed ultra high-resolution magnetic survey over the Tarcoola project shows the mineralised structures through the mine area have a distinct geophysical signature. Barton’s analysis of this dataset indicates that the extensions to the Perseverance pit, and a number of parallel repetitions, remain largely untested by drilling - the upcoming drill program is designed to test ten of these shallow targets, all within a 1km radius of the Perseverence open pit at Tarcoola.
Barton Gold Managing Director, Alexander Scanlon, said:
“In addition to extending mineralisation along the known structures converging in the Perseverance open pit, the drilling program we have designed will also test potentially significant new local structures and scale anomalies indicated in our ongoing analyses. “
“We expect that continued drilling, in conjunction with other work including the re-processing of local 2D seismic data from N-S and E-W lines adjacent to Tarcoola open pit mine, will further demonstrate the true potential of Tarcoola as a scale asset base and the low-cost, near-term core of operations driving a significant new regional SA mining hub.”
The targets identified through the geophysical survey are also showing an unexpected common characteristic – they correlate closely with high-grade drill intercepts that were not followed up by previous explorers.
Some of these targets include the Eastern Pit Boundary, with results there including 2 metres at 39.9 g/t gold from 73 metres down hole and the Old Flame prospect, which sits around a kilometre east of the Perseverance pit. Exciting shallow intercepts at Old Flame include 22 metres at 6.75 g/t gold from only 15 metres and 3 metres at 5.03 g/t from 28 metres – these targets are priorities for the July drill program.
Other drill targets flagged for drill testing include the Howling Gale, Lady Racin’ and Eclipse prospects along strike and adjacent to the Perseverance open pit.
Daly’s Dream, Wondergraph and the Genie Bar prospects will all get a look in as well.
Whilst these shallow, high-grade targets surrounding the Tarcoola operation may seem incentive enough for the ongoing program, Barton has a second string to its bow - the nearby Tunkillia gold discovery.
The Tunkillia gold deposits are located 70 km to the southeast of Tarcoola and whilst not the company’s immediate priority, these discoveries host much of Barton’s gold resource inventory. Tunkillia boasts open pit resources of 558,000 ounces of gold and 1.48 million ounces of silver.
Barton Gold remains a private entity with a number of high-profile investors on the registry including Perth-based ASX-listed engineering firm Primero Group. The company is aiming to list on the ASX in 2021 and expects to lodge a prospectus early in the new year – in the meantime, there’s plenty of work to be done.
Barton has scheduled drilling to commence at Tarcoola in late July with completion scheduled for some time in September. With over 10,000 metres of drilling about to be ploughed in and a plethora of targets to test, the company looks well placed forge out a solid following ahead of its planned 2021 listing on the ASX.
Is your ASX listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
