Barton Gold reports new high-grade assays at Tarcoola’s Perseverance mine
Barton Gold (ASX: BGD) (OTCQB: BGDFF) has reported further high-grade assays from the Perseverance open-pit mine within its Tarcoola gold project in South Australia.
Follow-up drilling of 10 holes for 882 metres confirmed new adjacent zones of gold mineralisation to the east of a July mineral resource estimate block model.
Perseverance has a current resource estimate of 20,000 ounces of gold grading approximately 2 grams per tonne within 80m of the pit floor.
Shallow zone testing
Drilling focused on testing shallow zones of the pit floor suspected to host further gold, with the goal of in-filling and extending the block model and resource estimate.
Best assays included 5m at 5.94g/t gold from 11m including 1m at 23.8g/t, 4m at 10.4g/t gold from 32m including 1m at 34.4g/t and 6m at 6.17g/t gold from 39m including 2m at 13.4g/t.
The company expects the new material will increase the total number of gold ounces which could be recovered from the same development profile.
It is also reviewing modelled, but unclassified, extensions for potential follow-up drilling.
Advancing Tarcoola
Managing director Alexander Scanlon was confident the new assays would help advance the Tarcoola project.
“We are pleased to confirm further high-grade mineralisation in the Perseverance mine’s open pit floor, which is expected to support the definition of additional resources,” he said.
“We also plan to review possible extensions as we position our assets for a potential ‘Stage 1’ operation utilising the fully-permitted Central Gawler Mill.”
Relatively underevaluated
The historic Tarcoola goldfield produced 77,000oz of gold from shallow workings between 1893 and 1955, with an average grade of 37.5g/t.
The small open pit mine at Perseverance produced ore grading up to 4g/t for two years from 2016.
Relatively little work has been done since then to evaluate the goldfield’s architecture or locate prospective ‘repeats’ of shallow, high-grade mineralisation.