Barton Gold’s re-appraisal of the Tarcoola goldfield in South Australia is pulling back the veil surrounding the historical mining centre with recent magnetic and 2D seismic studies revealing that the company’s Perseverance deposit may simply be the tip of the iceberg in this underexplored region. According to the company, the re-interpretation of old geophysical data points to the possibility of multiple repetitions of the lucrative Perseverance pit along a 14km mineralised gold trend.
Barton’s 100% owned Tarcoola gold project is located 600 km northwest of Adelaide in South Australia. The project consists of 1,200 square kilometres of prime gold ground in the revered Gawler Craton and is easily accessible from Barton’s Challenger gold mill located 120km to the northwest.
The company recently completed a number of detailed surveys and studies across the underexplored region, with detailed magnetics identifying an expansive mineralised corridor that hosts both the Perseverance gold deposit and a number of historic artisanal mines in similar structural positions, that may host repetitions to the multi-million tonne ore body.
Initial results have demonstrated that the Tarcoola gold trend extends for more than 4km to the east of the Perseverance pit with the company having already identified three potential repetitions of the deposit within this corridor. Targets include the larger mineralised envelope surrounding the historic high-grade gold mines on the Tarcoola Blocks at Day Dawn and the Old Flame, where previous drilling returned 22 metres at an impressive 6.75 g/t gold.
More recently however, Barton engaged geophysical experts, HiSeis, to undertake a detailed review of Geoscience Australia’s ‘seismic’ data across the project area to better understand the deeper plumbing of the gold system in order to more accurately target the ongoing exploration program.
Seismic profiling is more commonly used in oil and gas exploration as the technique to differentiate between the varying basement rocks and associated faults. It allows modelling of the subsurface geology down to extreme depths and more effective targeting of the uber-expensive drilling typically undertaken by ‘big-oil’ companies.
In recent years the use of seismic has crept into mineral exploration as gold and base metal explorers search deeper into the earths crust. Analysis of the Tarcoola seismic data extends down to more than 20km and shows that the structural architecture of the goldfield is dominated by the deep-seated, crustal scale Bulgunnia fault.
The deeper Bulgunnia fault appears to strongly influence the framework that hosts the mineralisation at Tarcoola, connecting into near-surface medium to small scale faults that interact with both the regional sediments and deeper granitic intrusives that have potentially concentrated and pushed the gold mineralisation into various structural traps that then develop into mineable targets.
The company now says the Perseverance shear extends to more than 7km in depth, providing a deep conduit for gold bearing fluids interacted with the ‘hot’ Hiltaba granite intrusives that are likely to have provided the heat-sink to drive the mineralised system. Utilising this model, Barton has identified an increasing number of regional targets and it is demonstrating that the Tarcoola goldfield is potentially far larger than first thought.
Barton Gold’s Managing Director, Alexander Scanlon said:
“We have now confirmed the potential for significant depth extensions of the Perseverance Shear and Perseverance Pit, and the high potential of multiple adjacent structures which underlie ML6455 and EL 6210 and directly intersect the same intrusive heat sources.”
“This extends our target area for repeats of high-grade shallow mineralisation, and deeper feeder structures, to almost 14km in length and firmly establishes Tarcoola as a large-scale, highly-prospective project long since waiting for its true potential to be confirmed.”
Whilst the regional magnetics have already identified a 4km long extension to the target stratigraphy east of Perseverance, the seismic study has extended this corridor a whopping 10km to west. This extension to the Tarcoola gold trend nearly triples Barton’s target area and delivers the company an entirely new hunting ground for the yellow metal – and potentially a camp scale gold mining project if the theory checks out
Adding further intrigue the company says that its analysis of the regional geophysical datasets also shows that Tarcoola forms a ‘regional geological triangle’ and occupies a similar geological setting to the nearby world-class copper-gold deposits at Olympic Dam and Prominent Hill. Whilst work on this aspect of the regional exploration is at an early stage, it points to greater potential of the project area and will assist in targeting as exploration advances.
Barton looks to be following the old adage that if you’re going to hunt elephants, you need to go to elephant country and its projects in the Gawler Craton count a number of elephant sized mineral deposits as it neighbours, the most famous of which is BHP's immense Olympic Dam operation.
Whilst Barton’s recent work is highly technical and may be lost on the uninitiated, the basic premise is that it says it has identified a myriad of structural faults around its Perseverance open pit that look just like Perseverance from a geological perspective.
If just one or maybe two of these faults are harbouring another Perseverance, it is game on for this soon to be ASX listed company.
Is your ASX listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
