Barton Gold (ASX: BGD) (OTCQB: BGDFF) has returned grades as high as 60 grams per tonne from shallow mineralisation in the floor of the Challenger West pit at its Challenger project in South Australia.
An 8,065 metre reverse circulation resource upgrade campaign in the Challenger West area aimed to test and upgrade mineralisation in the pit floor and confirm the presence of high-value materials that could be extracted by way of simple excavation.
Best results were 7m at 2.01g/t gold from 0m including 1m at 9.63g/t from 6m, 3m at 20.6g/t gold from 13m including 1m at 59.5g/t from 15m, 1m at 12.5g/t gold from 28m, and 1m at 20.5g/t gold from 17m.
They complement recent assays from the Challenger Main pit, which returned a maximum grade of 170g/t gold and confirmed the discovery of new mineralised zones in the open pit walls.
Boosting Challenger’s Profile
Barton managing director Alexander Scanlon said continued shallow results would be a boost for Challenger’s profile.
“These shallow materials regularly grade between 5g/t and 20g/t gold, and can be accessed by simple excavation to supplement other Challenger feed sources and increase the overall grade profile of mill feed materials,” he said.
“This kind of on-pit, near-surface mineralisation adjacent to our existing Central Gawler Mill provides an ideal low-risk feed to de-risk an operational restart at Challenger.”
Assays are still pending for holes drilled at the Challenger South-Southwest and Challenger 3 targets.
Gold Resource Estimate
Challenger has a mineral resource estimate of 10.6 million tonnes at 0.92g/t gold for 313,000 ounces and is adjacent to the mothballed Central Gawler mill.
The mill is the subject of a current definitive feasibility study targeting Stage 1 production.
The M1, M2, M3, SEZ, and CW lodes comprise underground mineralisation at depth and connect to existing open pits.
CW is a satellite pit to Challenger Main that contains a smaller amount of narrow but high-grade mineralisation.
