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Barton confirms there’s a shallow, high-grade gold extension off the Perseverance Mine
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High grade hits from Phase 2 drilling have confirmed the southern strike and depth extensions of the shallow open pit at Barton’s Tarcoola project in South Australia.
Notably, the final assays from the drill program have confirmed Perseverance West as a new, shallow, high-grade extension of the Perseverance Mine with a strike extending about 350m from the pit wall that is parallel to the Deliverance target.
Significant results include:
- 5m intersection grading 48.91 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from a depth of 115m,
- 4m at 11.38g/t gold from 107m including 1m at 40.66g/t gold from 108m, and
- 7m at 9.72g/t gold from 42m including 2m at 23.8g/t gold from 45m.
These results clearly back up some of sensational intersections including 6m at 43.64g/t gold from 197m and 2m at 66.8g/t gold from 155m from the Phase 1 drill program.
Barton Gold (ASX:BGD) managing director Alexander Scanlon said the results established Perseverance West as a significant, high-grade extension of the Perseverance Mine, in parallel to the high-grade Perseverance Shear structure.
“Phase 1 and Phase 2 drilling have yielded some very encouraging grades and intersections to complement significant historical high-grade intersections near the open pit profile,” he added.
“We have now significantly grown the mineralised profile for the Perseverance Mine, including a ~350m shallow extension.”
He added that with the company making a new discovery during every work program over the past 24 months and the recent discovery of 25 shallow targets, the company believes it is just getting a hint of Tarcoola’s true regional potential.
“We are now working to update our exploration database with the results of multiple recent programs, with the goal of quickly getting back in the field to drill the most exciting new local and regional exploration targets,” Scanlon added.
The company will now integrate the Phase 2 drill data with new Tarcoola ground penetrating radar and regional gravity surveys into the exploration database and update the regional structural model.
Tarcoola and the Perseverance Mine
Barton’s Tarcoola project includes the brownfields Perseverance Mine that was developed to depths of between 30m and 75m with little extensional drilling investment despite a high-grade mining history.
This potential for further gold discovery was proved when the company’s August 2020 Phase 1 drill program discovered the Perseverance West gold zone near the pit wall and mineralisation over 200m below the pit floor.
The company subsequently prepared an updated resource for Tarcoola and combined Phase 1 drill data with the limited historical drilling to define a small mineralised halo around the base of the open pit.
It also mapped out a preliminary 200m extension of mineralisation to the south-southwest of the open pit that is represented by the Perseverance West zone.
Phase 2 drilling has now significantly extended the mineralised envelope of the Perseverance Mine, with final Phase 2 assays confirming a ~90m depth extension in the north end of the Perseverance Mine, a ~200m extension to depth below the southern pit floor, and a ~350m south-southwest extension.
There is also potential for more extensions as mineralisation at the Perseverance Mine remains open in all directions.
Resource upgrades are also likely as most of the historical and recent drilling intercepts have not been included in the company’s resource estimate.
Upcoming activity
Barton has started planning for the Tarcoola Phase 3 drill program.
This program prioritises multiple newly discovered shallow targets on ML6455 and high priority regional exploration targets on EL6210.
The company is also expecting a steady stream of assay results from the Phase 1 drilling at the Tunkillia project.
This article was developed in collaboration with Barton Gold, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.
