Gold: High grade gold hits highlight value of Marmota’s tree sampling

The use of elevated gold in tree leaves as a guide towards gold mineralisation continues to pay off for Marmota (ASX:MEU) after drilling at its Aurora Tank project in South Australia struck multiple high grade hits.

Extensional drilling along the NW flank returned notable results of 4m at 28 grams per tonne gold from 64m and 4m at 24g/t gold from 68m.

Results of more than 5g/t gold are generally considered to be high-grade.

The program doubled the strike length of the NW flank, which was discovered in 2019 while following up on elevated gold in biogeochemical sampling – the sampling of tree leaves for elevated gold as an exploration aid.

The NW flank now extends 190m in a north-easterly direction and remains open along strike to the northeast.

Additionally, the new intersections mark the first time that the company has intersected such high grades of gold mineralisation at depths below 50m.

Over in Western Australia, Classic Minerals’ (ASX:CLZ) move to test a theory that historical drilling did not penetrate deep enough to intersect gold has paid off with a high grade hit containing visible gold.

The lone hole hit 8m at 7.91g/t gold from a depth of 60m that included a higher grade zone of 4m at 13.56g/t from 60m.

Here’s the bit that has Classic all excited:

This hole was drilled 1.2km south and along strike from the Kat Gap area where its drilling is focused on, and the company believes there is no geological reason why mineralisation isn’t present between the two areas.

It noted that geological reconnaissance following a recent bushfire that cleared the area had revealed outcrop and sub crop along the granite – greenstone contact between the two zones.

“This bodes extremely well for further gold mineralisation being discovered in the gap between this latest high-grade result and where our current drilling focus is at Kat Gap,” chief executive officer Dean Goodwin said.

In other ASX gold news today:

Initial drilling at Toro Energy’s (ASX:TOE) Yanda gold project has highlighted that a significant quartz vein system exists at the Golden Ways target.

The program returned hits of 2m at 2.3g/t gold from 100m within a broader zone of 8m at 0.65g/t gold from 97m and 1m at 3.18g/t gold from 80m.

Alto Metals’ (ASX:AME) step-out drilling at the Sandstone gold project has intersected a new shallow gold lode about 200m south of the historical Lord Nelson open pit.

The program returned a top hit of 24m at 3.7g/t gold from 104m with the company saying that the mineralisation style and geological setting of the new lode is identical to that of the Lord Nelson deposit.