Great Basin Gold (GBG-T) has significantly increased the gold resource at its Burnstone project, 80 km southeast of Johannesburg, South Africa.
The current measured and indicated resource totals 45.7 million tonnes grading 4.93 grams gold per tonne (or 7.2 million contained-oz. gold). This estimate was calculated with a 350 cm-gram gold per tonne (thickness x grade) cutoff.
In addition, using the same cutoff, there is an inferred resource of 13.9 million tonnes grading 10.37 grams gold per tonne. The thickness of the mineralization averages from 30-65 centimetres and the estimated resource used grades diluted to one-metre width.
This estimate includes drilling that was done up to November, 2004.
The resource is much bigger than previous estimates, in part because several gold-bearing areas have been combined in a single resource. Drilling has indicated that area 1 and area 4 (to the southwest) are continuous, and areas 2 and 3, along the same northwesterly-trending corridor as area 1, can be considered the same deposit.
Area 1 has seen the most drilling and comprises 64% of the measured and indicated resource. A pre-feasibility study that focused on area 1, was completed in early November of last year. The study speculated that a 24% internal rate of return could be garnered from a 1.5 million-tonne-per year mining operation (with annual production of 236,000 oz. gold).
Mineralization is within an ancient series of gold-bearing braided river channels, cutting the Kimberley reef. The deposit is found between two northwest-trending faults, in an area of uplift. Mineralization is found at depths of 250-1,000 metres.
The company has drilled 120,000 metres of core (187 holes) in the past two years.
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