Page 72 - pd280-Mar20-mag-web_Neat

sAReIc PReVIeW

Marmota squirrels away some cash

Aurora Tank was found using calcrete sampling,
however, Marmota is having tremendous
success detecting potential gold using tree
sampling in the Gawler Craton

60m from surface,” Rose said.
The positives for Marmota of finding
shallow gold at Aurora Tank is currently
being matched by metallurgical outcomes,
according to Rose.
He said column leach testing was deter-
mining that the metallurgy at Aurora Tank
was amenable to potential heap leach
processing.
“That means we wouldn’t have to build
a special plant or toll treat through some-
one else’s plant giving us the possibility of
a very low-cost capex operation without
needing a big mill,” Rose said.
“There are lots of people around that
have gold deposits and in some cases
they are close to surface, but they still
have to come up with $100 million to build
a plant and go through the whole process.
We are of the view that things are lining up
and we would not need to do all of that.”
Rose said it was still too early in the ex-
aising money has not been the done was much more highly supported than we ploration cycle at Aurora Tank to be con-
Rthing in the past at Marmota Ltd. were expecting,” Rose told Paydirt. sidering resource numbers or studies.
A handful of SPPs ($300,000 in Au- “Three years ago, we were a much In the meantime, and with no pressure
gust 2016 and $500,000 in August 2017) more greenfields explorer without having to raise money, Marmota will continue to
topped up by a $1 million placement to something of substance in gold and that back the exploration techniques and strat-
sophisticated investors almost 12 months has changed. The presence of the JMEI egies that continue to open up the Aurora
ago has largely allowed the company to incentive taxation credit has been helpful Tank project.
thrive in greenfields exploration at Aurora and a bit like icing on the cake.” “We don’t know how large it is going
Tank, north-west of Challenger in South A high gold price environment has no to get because every time we do a drill-
Australia’s Gawler Craton. doubt helped pique interest in Aurora ing programme we are finding more gold.
In challenging days for juniors trying to Tank, while Rose is adamant Marmota of- Even with this latest programme the best
court investment from the market, Marmo- fers investors a point of difference in the result we got from the first batch was from
ta’s effort at Aurora Tank has also been current bustling gold sector. the most outwardly extensional hole in the
aided by the Federal Government’s Junior “Something that distinguishes us from basalt area, right on the edge and contin-
Minerals Exploration Incentive (JMEI). the many other gold explorers around is uing along strike of the north-west flank,”
Using the JMEI taxation credit effec- that the gold is very close to surface; most Rose said.
tively and maximising its small bundles of it is within 50m from surface,” Rose “We actually identified that area us-
of cash, Marmota has made some good said. ing tree sampling, which is very good
inroads at the Aurora Tank gold project, Interestingly for Marmota, the first batch validation of our tree sampling methodol-
which is probably best reflected by the of assays from drilling completed in late ogy where we sample tree leaves as an
uptake for the SPP launched in late 2019. January returned 4m @ an average 24 g/t indicator of what might be below the sur-
The SPP announced in November to gold from 68m downhole. face. Calcrete sampling told us there was
raise $750,000 was overwhelmingly sup- The company indicated the result of 24 nothing there [north-west flank], so don’t
ported, with Marmota receiving $2.67 mil- g/t gold is an average of two assays, the bother drilling there. We are very happy
lion. first of which generated 31 g/t over 4m and with calcrete sampling, but sometimes
The company scaled back the taking to a duplicate composite (different spear) you have different tools, not everything is
$2.5 million but chairman Dr Colin Rose 17.5 g/t over 4m. perfect and it is nice to have a whole bag
said Marmota was in the strongest finan- “It was for the first time for us below 50m of things to look at.”
cial position he can remember. and that was interesting. The intersection
“We’re in a good position on the explora- was at 68m down-hole, but because we – Mark Andrews
tion side and on the financial side it [SPP] are at an angle it is actually only about

Page 72 MaRCH 2020 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT