Barton Gold (ASX:BGD) has continued its run of recent exploration success, reporting a new gold zone from Phase 1 drilling at its Tunkillia Project in a result that extends total strike by ~60% to almost 4km of continuous, shallow gold mineralisation.
The new ‘Area 191’ gold zone, which remains open at depth and along strike, extends for ~650m approximately 3km north-east of the project’s 965,000 ounce 223 Deposit.
Significant intersections throughout the new Area 191 mineralisation include:
- 1m @ 69.6 g/t Au from 68m
- 4m @ 11.4 g/t Au from 132m
- 5m @ 7.66 g/t Au from 110m
- 8m @ 4.42 g/t Au from 148m
Speaking on the new discovery, Barton Gold Managing Director Alexander Scanlon said: “We are pleased to announce another significant discovery at the Tunkillia Gold Project, where drilling has confirmed our prediction for a new body of mineralisation at the Area 191 target. The new Area 191 mineralisation has also been defined on the same maximum ~100m spacing used for Inferred Resources in the 223 Deposit, which hosts a 965koz Au JORC Mineral Resource on ~2.5km of strike.
All zones remain open to strike and depth extensions, and we remain focused on our objective of rapidly expanding the overall project footprint and JORC Mineral Resources base through further drilling. Barton has now discovered a total ~1.8km of new gold mineralisation with its initial post-IPO drilling programs, bringing the total mineralised strike in its Southern Hub to ~5km.”
“drilling has confirmed our prediction for a new body of mineralisation at the Area 191 target”
Importantly, the result continues Barton’s record of announcing a new discovery with each drilling update, which has seen total strike at its southern Tarcoola / Tunkillia hub expand to around 5km. The company has attributed drilling efficiency to a strong focus on pre-drilling technical work including compilation, audit and cleanup of historical regional and exploration data, remodelling of JORC resources with refined methods, plus reprocessing historical data using advanced software to develop theorised models predictive of gold mineralisation.
Map of the Tunkillia Project displaying the new Area 191 discovery along with the 223 Deposit and the recently-discovered 223 NorthResults from the first 20 holes of the Phase 1 program, reported earlier in November, identified a ‘significant’ new ~800m gold zone 500m northwest of 223 dubbed ‘223 North’. This drilling was the first carried-out in the area in approximately 15 years.
The company notes that a series of high priority targets at Tunkillia are yet to be tested, providing additional opportunity to uncover new discoveries.
A further 742m of Tunkillia Phase 1 drilling assays remain pending from the central 223 Deposit, with planning for further exploration work underway.
Images: Barton Gold Holdings Limited
