Marmota strikes bonanza gold at Aurora Tank, unveils high-grade titanium at Muckanippie

Marmota (ASX: MEU) has reported what it describes as an “excellent” quarter, with strong progress made through drilling success at its Aurora Tank gold project and confirmation of a heavy minerals discovery at Muckanippie in South Australia.

In the field, Marmota hit “bonanza” grade gold as high as 107 grams per tonne at Aurora Tank and the company’s maiden drilling at the Campfire Bore target highlighted gold from in a previously undrilled area.

Five intersections from this campaign returned assays of over 20g/t gold, while 13 intersections exceeded 10g/t gold.

Successful BLEG tests

Subsequent multiple bulk leach extractable gold (BLEG) tests of a 50g/t gold sample program saw a dramatic improvement of more than 73% in assay grade to an average of 87g/t gold.

Three of the five BLEG samples returned assays over 90g/t.

Significantly, laboratory metallurgical work the company conducted after the quarter to test recoveries for a low-cost, low-CapEx heap leach gold operation yielded outstanding gold recoveries of up to 93%.

‘Beneficial process’

Company chair Dr Colin Rose described the testing program as a “long but highly beneficial process.”

“Everything is coming together for Aurora Tank—high-grade intersections, predominantly close to surface, with excellent metallurgy—making it amenable to low-cost, low-capex open-pit heap leach methods, all underpinned by surging gold fundamentals,” Dr Rose said.

“More generally, Marmota is extremely fortunate to own all the gold deposits […] within a 10,000-square-kilometre gold hub of the Gawler Craton just as gold is booming to record highs.”

Muckanippie titanium hits

At Marmota’s new heavy mineral sands discovery at Muckanippie, the company identified outstanding high-value titanium feedstocks.

Samples tested using X-ray diffraction scanning reported results as high as 90% valuable heavy mineral (VHM) content in the concentrates, with an overall average grade of 79% VHM.

Sampling noted that the outstanding heavy mineral concentrations from Muckanippie contain predominantly VHM titanium content.

Marmota also recorded a high VHM in all the tested discovery holes including very high values of rutile/pseudorutile in the north, starting from surface.