SOUTH AFRICA - The Burnstone project in the Witwatersrand Basin, 80 km southeast of Johannesburg, may contain close to 14 million oz of gold in all resource categories. The project is owned by Vancouver-based GREAT BASIN GOLD, which has drilled 120,000 metres of core over the last two years.
The Burnstone goldfield is defined by an 18-km-long northwest-trending mineralized corridor developed within the Kimberley Reef, one of four main gold-bearing units in the Witwatersrand Basin. At Burnstone, the central portion of the gold corridor has been uplifted by two northwest-trending subparallel faults and as a result, a significant portion of the deposit areas along the trend occur at relatively shallow depths (250-750 metres).
Drilling has also revealed that several of the gold-bearing areas are continuous. For example an area at the southern edge of the gold trend, previously known as Area 4, has been found to be contiguous with the Area 1 gold deposit. Great Basin believes the gold occurrences at Burnstone are all part of one deposit, with several areas of gold concentration. As a result, the current mineral resources for the entire project are now tallied together. The estimated mineral resources, diluted over a 1-m width, are 64.19 million tonnes grading 4.41 g/t Au or 9.109 million contained ounces in the measured and indicated categories. Inferred resources add another 16.35 million tonnes at 9.33 g/t Au or 4.905 million contained ounces.
Great Basin's next step is to complete a feasibility study using the increased resource estimate. Information about the pre-feasibility study conducted in 2004 is available at www.GreatBasinGold.com.
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