Regulatory approval for its Tarcoola gold project has Barton Gold fast-tracking towards its upcoming drilling programs in South Australia’s Gawler Craton where the company will be testing targets generated in recently completed gravity surveys. One large-scale anomaly in its sights sits beneath the existing open pit that, in 2018 yielded a 1m hit grading an astonishing 607.75 g/t gold from 17m within a larger 11m going 73.31 g/t from a shallow 11m.
With the approval to explore now granted, the company says it has freed itself from the red tape and has a clear exploration path ahead with fewer administration fees going forward.
Barton Gold managing director, Alexander Scanlon said: “Last year’s Phase 2 drilling program was very successful in identifying high value opportunities on the existing Mining Lease, including a new approximately 350m long shallow high-grade gold zone on the existing open pit mine.”
“We are keen to test the high priority regional targets validated by our technical work, as we seek to rapidly expand the Tarcoola Project footprint during 2022.”
The company says the Tarcoola project is an existing brownfield open pit mine presenting significant potential mineral extensions. Barton considers it to be an under-explored asset with untapped scale potential.
According to Barton’s Prospectus, the Tarcoola Goldfield was once South Australia’s major hard rock gold producer. Reportedly, numerous historical workings produced about 77,000 ounces of gold from 64,000 tonnes of ore at a more-than-respectable average grade of 37.5 grams per tonne gold between 1900 and 1955.
Interestingly, the project’s cornerstone Perseverance open pit was previously operated by the ASX-delisted WPG Resources. In February 2018, as part of infill grade control drilling, WPG hit upon a 1m strike at a breathtaking 607.75 g/t gold within a larger 11m intersection going 73.31 g/t from only 11m downhole.
Prior to listing in June 2021, Barton turned up a series of solid results from the holes it plunged in search of southern and downdip extensions of Perseverance. A 37-hole reverse circulation program yielded 2m going an impressive 49.6 g/t gold from 220m in addition to a broader 7m grading 7.75 g/t gold from 95m.
Remarkably, the company believes the project may have the potential to host multiple structural repeats of the high-grade mineralisation and deposit model encountered in the historical open pit. Also of note, this potential bounty all sits within trucking distance of Barton’s mothballed processing plant 120 kilometres to the northwest.
Earlier in March, Barton revealed it netted a few new interesting targets at Tarcoola from a series of gravity surveys. With the approval in hand, the explorer will be eager to roll out the rig and start drill-testing and the large-scale anomaly beneath the existing open pit could be an early cab off the rank.
Barton holds 28.68 million tonnes of ore across its South Australian portfolio grading at 1.2 grams per tonne gold, containing about 1.1 million ounces of the precious yellow metal.
For now, its Tunkillia project 70km to the south of Tarcoola constitutes the bulk of its gold, contributing 965,000 ounces.
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