Approvals clear the way for Gladiator Resources to progress gold exploration at North Arunta
Gladiator Resources has been given the green light to begin its maiden drilling campaign at the Kroda and Tulsa gold prospects in the NT.
Melbourne-based junior Gladiator Resources (ASX: GLA) has received formal approval from the Northern Territory’s Central Land Council to commence a maiden drilling campaign at the Kroda and Tulsa gold prospects within the North Arunta project, 200 kilometres from Tennant Creek.
The council this week agreed to issue a Sacred Site Clearance Certificate for the project, which sets out conditions in relation to entering and working on protected land within the project’s boundaries.
The certificate will remain in place until end 2019 and will enable Gladiator to carry out a 2,000-metre campaign, planned over four weeks commencing next month.
Final submissions from potential drilling contractors have been received and Gladiator will complete site clearance work to enable rig access.
An agreement with the preferred contractor is expected by month-end.
Gladiator’s mine management plan for North Arunta has also received approval from the NT government, subject to the lodgement of a security deposit.
IP survey results
Gladiator said both approvals mean it is now well-positioned to capitalise on “excellent results” generated from a high-resolution, induced polarisation survey at the advanced Kroda prospect in June.
Previous drilling at Kroda defined a highly-anomalous gold intercept containing a 1.7km-long gold and arsenic-in-soil anomaly open to the north-west.
The IP survey defined three large, deep-seated chargeability anomalies representing high-priority drill targets for additional Kroda-style gold mineralisation.
Gladiator said these anomalies, which range in depth from 100m to 350m below surface, are “most likely to represent” broad domains of disseminated sulphides associated with a hydrothermal system responsible for known mineralisation at the existing Kroda-3 and Kroda-4 targets.
“The new targets could represent significant gold mineralisation at depth and along strike from [the] shallow historic drill gold intercepts at Kroda-3 and Kroda-4,” the company said.
The upcoming drill campaign will test the anomalies using diamond drilling techniques with some reverse circulation pre-collars.
Drilling will aim to demonstrate potential major extensions to known shallow gold mineralisation at Kroda-3 and Kroda-4 as well as newly-identified ore shoots and gold systems along strike and at depth.
Project background
The North Arunta project is located over approximately 4500 square kilometres of granted tenements and tenement applications which are wholly-owned by Prodigy Gold (ASX: PRX).
Earlier this year, Gladiator acquired earn-in rights from Prodigy to own up to 70% of the project, by sole funding $6.5 million of exploration expenditure over four-and-a-half years.
North Arunta sits along the 550km-long, gold-endowed Trans-Tanami Corridor – a first-order, crustal-scale fault, which is spatially associated with world-class gold deposits including Callie and The Granites, both owned by US mining giant Newmont.
The Arunta region has several known mineral occurrences including gold, copper, nickel, zinc, tin and tantalum.
At midday, shares in Gladiator Resources were trading 50% higher at $0.003.