Marmota smashes out 20,000m as SA gold drilling blitz gathers pace

Marmota has pushed its 2026 Greenewood drilling campaign beyond 20,000 metres.

Marmota (ASX: MEU) has kept the drill rods spinning at its high-grade Greenewood gold discovery in South Australia’s Gawler Craton, punching through more than 20,000 metres of new reverse-circulation (RC) drilling since the current campaign kicked off in April.

The company says the program has now racked up 188 new holes, split between 90 holes in the main Greenewood zone and 98 holes at its potential Mainwood extension, only 400 metres southwest of Greenewood.

That 400m-long untested space between the two more intensively drilled areas already features two historic one-metre interval gold assays grading between one and five grams per tonne (g/t), which sit on two separate lines 100m apart. The old holes were drilled halfway between the two prospects and point to a strong chance of mineralised continuity between the two zones.

The latest drilling milestone comes barely three months after Marmota launched what was originally mapped out as a roughly 220-hole, 20,000m program designed to extend the mineralised system, increase drillhole density and feed more data into the company’s Gawler gold scoping study.

Greenewood has been building a significant head of steam since Marmota’s maiden drilling in 2025 lit up a near-continuous high-grade gold system. Detailed one-metre assays released in May included hits above 40g/t gold and intersection lengths up to 21m.

The company’s previous maiden drilling also highlighted a string of thick, shallow, high-grade results that the company says rank among the best seen in the Gawler Craton since the old 1.2 million-ounce Challenger gold mine was discovered in 1995.

Management says the current campaign is all about proving Greenewood has plenty more gold to give. At the same time, Marmota is blitzing Mainwood in the first significant drilling since taking control of the ground and the first serious testing undertaken there since 2018. So far, the program has stretched far enough along strike to the northeast that drilling has extended beyond the boundaries of the company's original exploration plan.

Mainwood is clearly no sideshow. Historical work there has only amounted to 3700m of RC drilling across 53 holes. In comparison, Greenewood only saw 7000m of RC drilling before strong results from the maiden campaign transformed the prospect with bonanza grades that seem to be a hallmark of the company’s Gawler Gold project.

This program serves two primary roles: (1) to continue the growth of the main Greenewood zone, which has been yielding spectacular results and remains open in all directions; (2) to attack the southern extensions (Mainwood) with our maiden drilling program there with the aim of identifying high-grade gold to the south too.   Marmota Limited Executive Chairman Dr Colin Rose

The company has now drilled twice as many RC metres in the past three months as had been drilled at Greenewood and Mainwood combined before it took control of the two deposits.

Greenewood and Mainwood sit 35km northwest of Marmota’s current flagship Aurora Tank gold deposit and 30km north-east of the historic Challenger mine. Both prospects form part of the Golden Moon joint venture, in which Marmota holds 90 per cent through its wholly owned subsidiary Half Moon Pty Ltd.

Importantly for Marmota, its latest round of intensive drilling is not being undertaken on a shoestring budget, either. The company’s March quarterly showed a $15 million capital raise and a quarter-end cash balance of $15.9m, giving it the financial firepower to maintain the pace of its Gawler gold strategy.

With the original program likely to be expanded and updated and collar diagrams still to come, Greenewood is shaping as a fast-moving story. Marmota has already shown it can turn an initially lightly drilled gold prospect into a genuine growth engine and the next round of results should show just how far its current targets have yet to run.

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