Barton Gold Returns Assays of up to 170g/t from Drilling at Challenger Project

Barton Gold (ASX: BGD) (OTCQB: BGDFF) has returned grades of up to 170 grams per tonne from recent drilling at the historical Challenger project in South Australia.

The 8,065-metre reverse circulation resource upgrade campaign saw the completion of drillholes at the Challenger Main, Challenger West, Challenger South-Southwest, and Challenger 3 targets.

Drilling at Challenger Main – which operated as an open pit for two years from 2002 – identified new high-grade mineralisation in the pit walls and extensions.

Best assays were 9m at 2.2g/t gold from 97m including 1m at 6.63g/t from 103m, 11m at 5.67g/t gold from 24m including 1m at 50.9g/t from 27m, and 10m at 17.7g/t gold from 40m including 1m at 170.7g/t from 43m.

Challenger Mineral Resource

The Challenger project has a mineral resource estimate of 10.6 million tonnes gold at 0.92g/t for 313,000 contained ounces.

The M1, M2, M3, SEZ, and CW lodes comprise underground mineralisation at depth that connects to existing open pits.

This first batch of assays received were generated from the ‘M3-SEZ’ zone to confirm high-value material that could be extracted by way of an open-pit cutback.

Multiple high-grade results indicated new and previously unmodelled mineralisation in open pit extensions.

The company will use these results to enhance its modelling of the zone, and expects  further assays from the remaining targets within the next two months.

Higher-Grade Mineralisation

Barton is targeting an operational restart at Challenger commencing with a Stage 1 ‘baseline’ operation utilising higher-grade material from the tailings storage facility and limited, near-surface material without disturbing the underground mine, its mineralisation, or its infrastructure access.

Managing director Alexander Scanlon said drilling had supported these restart plans.

“We had been targeting up to 2g/t gold on open-pit extensions to provide a source of lower-risk feed for our Stage 1 operations,” he said.

“We were therefore surprised to find much higher-grade mineralisation than expected in previously unmodelled extensions immediately adjacent to the open pit, […] indicating potential for additional near-pit discoveries

“This kind of on-pit, near-surface mineralisation adjacent to the existing Central Gawler Mill provides ideal low-risk feed to de-risk an operational restart at Challenger.”