Marmota Begins Major Drilling to Unlock Greenewood’s Southern Gold Potential

Major Drilling Campaign Targets Southern Greenewood Extension

Marmota Limited (ASX:MEU) has kicked off a significant reverse circulation (RC) drilling program at its Greenewood gold project in South Australia’s Gawler Craton, focusing on the largely untested southern Mainwood zone. This maiden campaign aims to deliver approximately 220 drill holes totalling around 20,000 metres, potentially doubling the known mineralised strike to 2 kilometres.

The program, which began in April and is expected to run through May and June, prioritises the Mainwood extension with about 70% of holes targeting this zone, while the remaining 30% will infill and extend the main Greenewood area to the north. The southern zone has seen limited historical drilling, with only around 3,700 metres of RC drilling conducted prior to Marmota’s involvement, underscoring the scale of the exploration opportunity.

Greenewood’s Growing Significance in the Gawler Gold Belt

Greenewood has rapidly emerged as one of the standout gold discoveries in the Gawler Craton since the Challenger deposit’s 1995 breakthrough. Marmota’s previous drilling programs have revealed bonanza-grade gold close to surface with thick, continuous mineralisation, highlighted by exceptional intersections reported in December 2025 and February 2026. The current drilling push seeks to replicate this success in the Mainwood zone, which has not been drilled since 2018.

This exploration is part of the Golden Moon Joint Venture, where Marmota holds a 90% stake through its subsidiary Half Moon Pty Ltd. The project’s proximity, approximately 35km northwest of Marmota’s flagship Aurora Tank deposit and 30km northeast of the historic Challenger Gold Mine, offers potential operational efficiencies and economies of scale. Aurora Tank itself has demonstrated outstanding gold grades and metallurgical recoveries, supporting the prospect of low-cost, open-pit heap leach production.

The Greenewood discovery is particularly notable for lacking a surface calcrete gold anomaly, a common exploration tool in the region. This suggests the possibility of further hidden deposits within the Gawler Gold project area that traditional sampling methods might miss, expanding the frontier of exploration in this prolific gold belt.

Strategic Positioning Amid Ongoing Resource Development

Marmota’s drilling campaign complements its ongoing maiden scoping study for the broader Gawler Gold project, which includes multiple deposits along the gravity anomaly’s arc. The company’s Executive Chairman Dr Colin Rose expressed enthusiasm about the program’s dual objectives: to build on Greenewood’s spectacular northern results and to aggressively explore the southern Mainwood zone for similar potential.

The timing and scale of this drilling follow Marmota’s recent decision to ramp up exploration efforts, reflecting confidence in the project’s upside potential. The company’s strategy aligns with its broader ambition to consolidate and develop a significant gold resource in a region with a rich history of high-grade discoveries and production.

This drilling initiative builds on Marmota’s earlier announcement of a major push to extend the Greenewood gold strike, which laid out the groundwork and rationale for this expanded program. The current campaign’s success will be critical to defining the resource base ahead of further development studies and potential production planning.