Marmota begins maiden gold drill program to unpack the hits at Goolagong

Marmota has kicked off drilling at gold prospect Goolagong
15-hole program is starter to kick off major gold exploration programs at Aurora Tank and Campfire Bore
Goolagong has revealed significant gold grades – indicating further potential untapped resources

Special Report: The focus in South Australian gold is heading to the Gawler Craton this week, where Marmota (ASX:MEU) has kicked off drilling at its potential new gold find at Goolagong.

Maiden exploration of MEU’s previously undrilled Goolagong target will include the first ever RC holes as a warm up, before extending to the key gold discoveries at Aurora Tank and Campfire Bore.

Goolagong was initially found in a reconnaissance program with a shallow aircore drill hole that reached the end of its limits at 38m deep, with the last 2m revealing significant gold grades. With mineralisation still continuing at the end of the hole, it indicated the potential to find more gold below.

Those strikes included:

2m at 0.64 g/t Gold From 36m downhole to end of hole
From 36m to 37m: 0.53 g/t gold; and
From 37m to 38m: 0.75 g/t gold.

Marmota will be carrying out major programs at Aurora Tank and Campfire Bore after completing the first RC holes at the new Goolagong prospect. Pic: MEU

Gold and Uranium on the cards

Goolagong is part of Marmota’s Gawler Craton project in the globally recognised and significantly underexplored region of the broader Woomera Prohibited Defence Area, which also hosts MEU’s advanced flagship Aurora Tank project. Aurora Tank features multiple bonanza grade gold intersections of over 100g/t gold close to surface.

Once drilling is completed at Goolagong, MEU will be moving the rig to carry out the main programs at Aurora Tank and Campfire Bore.

Goolagong is just 20km northwest of the Challenger gold mine which produced over one million ounces of gold. It is also 35km from Marmota’s 90%-owned Greenewood and Mainwood gold deposits.

The maiden discovery came in a hole to test a north-east striking gold-in-calcrete anomaly over a large 800m by 200m zone.

Nearby holes ended very close to surface, indicating a more powerful RC rig was needed to penetrate deeper and find the true extent of the hidden mineralisation at the never before drilled prospect.

Marmota already boasts 300,000oz of gold resources across Greenewood, Mainwood and the larger Campfire Bore and Golf Bore deposits.

But those were tabled in 2018 at significantly lower gold prices, which have more than doubled from $1680/oz to over $3500/oz in the interceding years.

Campfire Bore is being drilled for the first time in eight years as part of the current program, and is part of Marmot’s 90% owned Golden Moon JV.

The holes that will be drilled at Aurora Tank, meanwhile, will be used to try close off and finalise the design of an open pit at the project, which is already advanced. Aurora Tank is 100% owned by Marmota.

Uranium drilling to follow

Marmota’s flagship uranium resource is at Junction Dam, which sits adjacent to the Honeymoon mine, recently reopened by $1.6 billion capped Boss Energy (ASX:BOE) amid climbing yellowcake prices.

Marmota recently announced it has completed the design of programs at Junction Dam to substantially grow the existing JORC resource there. Marmota’s Junction Dam tenement bookends both sides of the palaeochannel that passes through Honeymoon, and shows enormous potential to grow the uranium resource.

This article was developed in collaboration with Marmota, 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.