Marmota has come out with all guns blazing in the latest drilling of its burgeoning Aurora Tank project in South Australia, with a suite of new intersections featuring up to 36 grams per tonne gold.

The results – which show a peak intercept of 8m dripping with 20g/t gold – highlight multiple high-grade gold intercepts exceeding 5g/t from the company’s southwards extensional and infill program and include some of the closest-to-surface hits encountered to date at Aurora. The headline result also comes with a high-grade sweetener by way of 4m at 36.9g/t gold from 32m downhole depth.

In addition to the headline hit, a further top four primary intercepts comprise 8m at 8.9g/t gold, 4m at 13.3g/t, 4m at 8.2g/t and 4m going 5.3g/t – all of which occupy the south-eastern corner of the current Aurora Tank drilling pattern.

‘Everything is coming together for Aurora Tank.’

Marmota chairman Dr Colin Rose

The southernmost holes in that area of the grid are from drilling earlier this year and include a line of holes that are still carrying grades in the 1g/t to 5g/t gold range, south-west along strike from the latest hits.

Marmota chairman Dr Colin Rose said: “This has been a surprising program … and has vastly exceeded our expectations. In particular, the new expansion of Aurora Tank to the south, combined with multiple high-grade intercepts so close to surface, with so little cover to remove, means that the new expanded zone to the south may potentially be the most profitable of the whole deposit. Everything is coming together for Aurora Tank.”

The company says its drilling was initially intended to fill in a few gaps in the pattern and close off a handful of sections to assist with finalising an open-pit design for Aurora Tank. Instead, it has pointed management in the direction of a potential near-surface and easily-mined gold bonanza.

Given Marmota’s aspiration to move as quickly as possible to near-surface, open-pittable oxide gold that is suited to low capex, heap-leach gold recovery methods, the evolving new potential looks like a match made in heaven.

The opportunity is enhanced not only by the strong possibility of minimal pre-strip when it comes to mining – and hence reduced mining costs from the outset – but also by favourable metallurgy, for which studies into optimising gold recoveries from that style of operation are almost complete.

And a raging gold price that is testing the shores of a once-distant, but now tantalisingly-close, AU$4000 per ounce lake is now the biggest draw-card of all inspiring Marmota to progress Aurora as quickly as possible.

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