Marmota has kicked off a reverse-circulation (RC) drilling program in South Australia, with the first 15 holes designed to follow up a new 2m at 0.64 grams per tonne gold discovery at its 100 per cent-owned Goolagong prospect.

The discovery was made during the company’s “Project X” regional air-core (AC) drilling program that put the first 17 holes ever drilled into its “Target 5″ at Goolagong to explore a north-east-striking gold-in-calcrete anomaly. The anomaly measuring about 800m by 200m is located within Goolagong, cutting diagonally across the extreme south-east corner of the ground, and is possibly coincident with a total magnetic intensity (TMI) anomaly trending in the same direction.

Of the original 17 scout AC holes put into the target area, most of them were drilled to refusal before reaching their target depths due to ground hardness. However, the sole remaining hole intercepted 2m going 0.64g/t gold from 36m downhole to end-of-hole (EOH), including 1m at 0.53g/t gold from 36m and 1m at 0.75g/t gold from 37m.

The drill met refusal due to ground hardness at 38m depth and could not be advanced further. It means that the final 2m of potentially increasing gold mineralisation at EOH is still considered open below that depth.

Importantly, that hole is not only the south-westernmost hole in the pattern where the magnetic anomaly intensifies slightly as it passes out of the tenement, but it is also less than 50m north of the southern boundary of the tenement. In any case, the magnetic trend – and possibly a strengthening gold signature – passes into contiguous Marmota joint venture (JV) ground to the south where the company retains 100 per cent of the gold rights.

The latest program is likely to return to the discovery hole and test its immediate surrounding area – possibly even twinning the hole – while also testing to the north and south.

It would by no means be the first time that a big discovery is unveiled by an apparently skinny hit in a “geologically ambiguous” area. And if drilling around the discovery hole comes up with the goods, that would likely initiate further RC drilling back up the trend to the north-east, where previous holes could not be completed to their target depths.

Once the new follow-up drilling is finished at Goolagong, a bit akin to playing the movie shorts before the main feature at a cinema, the company plans to send the rig back to its bigger gold program at Aurora Tank and Campfire Bore in the north-east of its extensive tenement group.

In the meantime, Marmota is likely to be watching out for its assays just as keenly as tennis fans did when taking in the on-court work of the famous Australian tennis player the prospect was named after.

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