Vancouver — Drilling at
Hunter Dickinson-led Great Basin acquired the project earlier this year when it purchased African-based Southgold Exploration.
Since January 2003, the company has completed 37,629 metres of core drilling in Area 1 and 34,164 metres in Area 2.
Measured and indicated resources total 29.2 million tonnes grading 5.73 grams gold per tonne, or 5.37 million oz., based on a cutoff grade of 350 grams per tonne. This represents a 17% increase in the number of contained ounces in Area 1 over the estimate performed a year ago.
The inferred resource estimate for Area 2 is 13.5 million tonnes grading 6.5 grams gold, or 2.8 million oz. gold, based on the same 350-gram cutoff. Area 2 remains open to further expansion.
The Burnstone goldfield comprises four gold-rich areas within an 18-km, northwest-trending corridor of ancient river channels. The central part of the corridor is thought to have been lifted by faulting, which brought it up to depths of 250-750 metres. This is shallow compared with other Witwatersrand deposits, which occur at depths exceeding 1,000 metres.
The deeper deposits have traditionally been defined by drilling widely spaced holes from surface, which are later filled-in from underground development drilling. Owing to the relatively shallow depths of Burnstone’s deposits, the company plans to drill-test and define the deposits from closely spaced surface holes and, based on the results, decide whether or not to proceed with underground development.
Engineering studies are planned for Areas 1 and 2, and continued drilling is planned for Areas 2, 3 and 4, where multi-rig drilling is under way.
Visible gold was noted in three holes recently drilled in the northern portion of Area 4, which intersected the Kimberley reef.
Burnstone is in the northeastern part of the Witwatersrand Basin, 80 km southeast of Johannesburg.
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