Barton Gold has teased out more gold around the northern edges of the Perseverance pit floor at the Tarcoola gold project in South Australia. The strikes continue a run of success for Barton following the gold zone discovered at Perseverance West last year. Notable shallow drill hits were recorded including 1 metre grading 2.51 grams per tonne gold from 26m and 1m grading 7 g/t gold from 37m.
The Tarcoola gold project sits in the prospective central Gawler craton in South Australia and houses the Lady Racin’ prospect and Perseverance historical open pit.
The second phase of drilling at Lady Racin' and Perseverance have produced a consistent string of results confirming depth extensions at the northern end of the Perseverance mine. High grade intercepts around the shallow northern pit area include 1m running 2.47 g/t gold from 27m, 9m grading 1.70 g/t gold from 76m and 5m grading 4.74 g/t gold from 106m.
The company remains laser focused on converting the current resource at the Perseverance open pit to reach JORC compliance in addition to further testing the extent of mineralisation that remains open in all directions.
Historically, drilling has been focussed on the south-south-western end of the Perseverance open pit including by Barton’s own drill campaign last year. The recent phase 2 drilling however, has shifted focus to the gold potential lying at the northern end of the pit. The pit profile is much shallower in the northern end averaging an approximate depth of about 30m in comparison to the a depth of about 75m in the south-south-west. The shallower northern end provides a more economic extension of the pit with less overburden required to be trucked to access the ore.
Of the seven drillholes that targeted the northern end of the pit, six of them intersected grades greater than 2.5 g/t gold presenting a considerably greater prospect for an open pit cutback operation.
Of the notable grades intersected in the northern extent, the 9m going 1.7 g/t gold hit was located approximately 40m below the current base of the pit wall with other shallower intercepts occurring in the pit wall or through the pit ramp.
The fertile area surrounding the Perseverance pit has historically been underexplored with little extensional drilling despite its high-grade production history.
The results from Perseverance pit north and Lady Racin' targets are the first to be received from the 4,944m Tarcoola phase 2 drilling program.
There is also considerable anticipation around the additional 3,086m worth of drill assay results from phase 2 drilling which remains pending and due to be received and reported over the coming weeks. The remaining assays targeted potential depth and strike extensions of the Perseverance west gold zone that currently extend 200m from the south-south-western end of the open pit, in addition to the Archer prospect located approximately 400m west-south-west of the pit.
Barton Managing Director Alexander Scanlon said: “Given the degree of historical under-investment, we are not surprised to confirm shallow high-grade extension opportunities at both ends of the open pit. At only ~30-75m depth, it may be that the mine has quite literally just scratched the surface of its strike and depth potential.”
“We eagerly await the balance of phase 2 drilling assays, and look forward to following up the dozens of targets we have now confiormed on the Mining Lease within ~1.5km of the open pit.”
Barton is also waiting on assay results from the recently drilled Tunkillia phase 1 drilling program located approximately 70m south-south-east of the Tarcoola which are expected to be delivered in the near term.
With historically inefficient exploration efforts previously undertaken in the Perseverance open pit and with the underexplored land surrounding it in Barton’s ownership, the company is well positioned to take advantage of the gold left in the ground at the current gold price.
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By Matt Birney
