Marmota completes South Australian Gawler Craton gold drilling

Marmota Ltd’s aerial view of drilling in progress at its Greenewood gold prospect, viewed from north to south. The program sunk 146 reverse circulation drill holes into the target area for 15,480 metres.

Marmota Limited (ASX: MEU) has successfully completed its maiden drilling program at its Greenewood gold prospect, a key component of its Gawler Gold project in South Australia’s Gawler Craton, about 100km southwest of Coober Pedy and within the Woomera Prohibited Defence Area.

The Gawler Craton, spanning 440,000 square kilometres, is a highly prospective yet remarkably under-explored region, hosting significant gold deposits such as the historical Challenger mine which lies 30km southwest of Greenewood and produced over one million ounces of gold spanning 16 years.

The Greenewood drilling program, part of the Golden Moon Joint Venture (JV) with Coombedown Resources, saw Marmota, through its subsidiary Half Moon, sink 146 reverse circulation (RC) holes for a total of 15,480 meters, a significant expansion from the initially planned 127 holes for 10,000m which was later revised to 139 holes for 12,500m.

The average hole depth across the program was about 106m, with drilling progressing at an impressive rate of over 300m per day, enabling the program to be completed ahead of schedule.

This is Marmota’s maiden program at Greenewood. It has been executed flawlessly, with excellent drilling rates, expanded twice, and still completed ahead of time. It is generating considerable excitement among our exploration team, and we now look forward to receiving assay results.

Marmota Chairman Dr Colin Rose

Dr Rose said he sees the pieces of the puzzle rapidly coming together which include a pipeline of adjacent gold deposits which all form part of the 100 per cent Marmota-owned Gawler gold project – a project which is now seeing rapid growth, expansion and development.

Samples are being collected and will be sent to Adelaide for laboratory testing, with assay results expected in early October.

The program marks Marmota’s first drilling at Greenewood and the first exploration on the site since limited drilling was undertaken back in 2018, highlighting the deposit’s underexplored potential.

The previous exploration assault on the prospect seven years ago saw a total of only 8245 meters of drilling including 372m rotary airblast, 7109m reverse circulation and 764m diamond drilling.

Greenewood, located 35km northwest of Marmota’s flagship Aurora Tank gold deposit, forms part of the company’s “Arc of Six” gold deposits along a Y-shaped gravity anomaly in the northwestern Gawler Craton.

This arc includes Marmota’s 100 per cent-owned Aurora Tank, known for its bonanza grades exceeding 100 grams per tonne near-surface and excellent metallurgical recoveries, which position it for potential low-cost, open-pit heap leach production.

The Golden Moon JV, where Marmota holds a 90 per cent stake, also encompasses the Campfire Bore, Golf Bore, and Mainwood prospects, located between 12km and 35km from Aurora Tank, potentially giving the northern group of deposits a high degree of operational synergy.

Recent ministerial consent for the two Golden Moon tenement transfers in June cleared the way for the accelerated exploration of the four prospects in the tenement group.

Previous drilling at Campfire Bore, less than 5km northeast of Greenewood, yielded high-grade results last year, including 1m at 107 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 57m, with multiple intercepts above 10g/t gold, underscoring the locality’s prospectivity.

The Mainwood prospect, 1km southwest of Greenewood, and Golf Bore remain largely unexplored, but their proximity suggests similar potential may be identified in future drilling.

At Aurora Tank, Marmota is advancing production-related studies with indications of a resource estimate nearing completion, although no official announcement has yet been made.

The current gold price hovers around A$5200 per ounce, nearly triple the A$1600 price that prevailed during Greenewood’s last drilling in 2018 significantly enhancing the economic viability of Marmota’s projects.

Marmota has developed an enviable record of exploration success and the company’s rapid progress at Greenewood points to a possible transformative phase for its Gawler Gold project in the near future, if the stars align as hoped.

With assays due in October and gold prices remaining persistently high, Marmota looks well-placed to liberate further significant value in this underexplored gold province.

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