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Gold exploration company Glass Earth Gold has started drilling at a site in Central Otago.
Last year Glass Earth carried out an airborne geophysics survey targeting gold over 1.3 million ha in Otago. Teams on the ground then carried out exploration work for the past eight months.
The company said today it was advancing a sequence of ranked prospects and last Tuesday started drilling on initial target Sparrow Hawk, at Rough Ridge, Central Otago.
That work involved two orientated diamond holes, and would take about two months to complete and receive assay results for, Glass Earth said.
Ground-based prospecting at Sparrow Hawk had indicated a new significantly gold mineralised system.
Further drilling targets were being evaluated, with access and drilling consents being obtained.
In total, some 5500 soil samples, 600 rock chip samples and 700 stream sediment samples over 24 prospects had been collected and assayed in the past eight months, the company said.
That had led to the advancement of five prospects to drilling and a further 19 following through.
Shares in Glass Earth last traded at 18c on June 3, having ranged between 25c and 13c in the past year.
* The region is no stranger to gold diggers.
The Central Otago Gold Rush was a brief phenomenon during the 1860s. The discovery of gold at Gabriel's Gully led to a rapid influx of foreign miners, all dreaming of striking it rich.
The gold rush contributed to the rapid expansion and commercialisation of the new colonial settlement of Dunedin, which quickly grew to be New Zealand's largest city at the time.
However, only a few years later, most of the smaller new settlements were deserted again, and gold extraction became a more commercialised, long-term activity.
- NZPA, NZHERALD STAFF