Dr Rose says it is “remarkable” that, because of various legal transactions and other delays, no drilling has been undertaken on the promising tenements for many years. Earlier work on the ground was conducted by Dominion, which made the discovery of the Challenger gold mine.

Marmota expects to get assays back from its most recent Aurora tank drilling early next month and hopes they will support an inaugural resource model that will enable it to finalise an open-pit design for a heap leach operation. Management believes its Golden Moon JV ground has “enormous growth potential”, especially considering the paucity of recent work and the accompanying benefits of being able to use new exploration techniques and related technologies.

Additionally, all of the mineralisation defined so far lies within 100m from surface, implying easy access to open-pittable feedstock and the potential for low-cost heap leach processing of all or some of the JV resources. Many of the previous Campfire Bore drillholes were often only drilled to as little as 20m to 30m depth.

As Golden Moon lies within ready access to Aurora Tank, the company can use lessons learned and data gained from metallurgical studies in progress on potential feedstock from that project and there are also likely to be further economies of scale benefits. The planned drilling at Campfire Bore will considerably overshadow all prior RC work at the site, which amounted to 130 holes.

Marmota previously lodged a program for environment protection and rehabilitation application with the SA Department of Energy and Mining to allow it to begin drilling at Golden Moon, with the intention of kicking off its proposed work as soon as the approval was given.

Now with its finger on the start button, the company has initiated the first drilling program at Campfire Bore in six years and says it expects the substantial campaign to take about three months to complete. And then Half Moon may be able to prove that its Golden Moon is a full one.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: [email protected]