Marmota (ASX: MEU) has commenced its first-ever drilling program at the Greenewood gold discovery within the Gawler gold project in South Australia.

Crews have commenced drilling at an average of 300 metres per day, and Marmota has reported “excellent progress” so far.

The company plans to drill 127 holes for 10,000m to an average depth of 79m in a program it expects will continue into August.

Growing Gawler

Chair Dr Colin Rose expects the Greenewood campaign will further grow Marmota’s Gawler gold project.

“Gawler gold is progressing beautifully with our flagship Aurora Tank deposit advancing through production-related studies,” he said.

“We are delighted to now be carrying out our maiden program at Greenewood and we expect the results will help us develop a pipeline of adjacent gold deposits as we rapidly grow and expand our Gawler gold project.”

Golden Moon JV

The Greenewood deposit forms part of the Golden Moon joint venture (JV), in which Marmota holds 90% equity through subsidiary Half Moon alongside private company Coombedown Resources.

Marmota received ministerial consent in June for the transfer of title relating to Golden Moon tenements EL5998 and EL6569 that include four of the Arc of Six gold deposits along the flanks of a major Y-shaped gravity anomaly in the north-west Gawler Craton.

Greenewood is located approximately 30 kilometres north-east of the historic Challenger gold mine and 35km north-west of Aurora Tank, which has previously returned multiple bonanza grades of over 100 grams per tonne near surface in five different zones.

Greenewood discovery

Tyranna Resources (ASX: TYX) discovered Greenewood in 2016 during a follow-up reverse circulation (RC) drilling campaign and divested the project to Marmota in 2020, when Tyranna changed strategy to pursue lithium in Angola.

The deposit has been subject to 8,245m of past rotary air blast, RC and diamond drilling, returning multiple intersections over 20g/t gold including 53g/t from 30m to 31m (as part of 14m @ 6g/t), 37g/t from 48 to 49m (as part of 22m @ 4g/t), and 29g/t from 31m to 32m (as part of 5m @ 10 g/t).

Marmota is seeking to develop Greenewood’s potential for low-cost open-pittable operations.