Barton Gold Holdings Limited announced that it has been awarded $595,000 in exploration grants under Round 3 of the South Australian Government's Accelerated Discovery Initiative (ADI) for approved work programs at the Tarcoola and Tunkillia Projects. Barton's ML6455 has been the subject of significant historical gold interest, with mining during the early 1900s and the Perseverance Mine during 2017/18. However, modern exploration in the highly prospective terrain has been relatively insignificant until Barton identified a new, highly prospective system of shears and faults analogous to the Perseverance Shear during 2020.

The Company plans to undertake 2D seismic surveys in this newly recognised structural corridor to improve resolution of the near sub-surface (up to approximately 1,500m depth) and the interpreted regional structural model, including conceptual drill testing of inferred structural targets to validate local interpretation. Additionally, during September 2021 Barton announced the preliminary findings of a ground penetrating radar (GPR) trial on ML6455 which was co-funded by a grant awarded during Round 2 of the ADI. This trial identified several new shallow targets at the Tarcoola Gold Project, including approximately 2 dozen vein-like targets, a shallow (approximately 8m deep) stockwork-like intrusive anomaly, and a shallow (appr.12m deep) dome-like anomaly, all located within approximately 1.5km of the historical high-grade Perseverance open pit mine.

The Company intends to use ADI Round 3 funding to test drill and validate the GPR trial output data collected during 2021, to enhance the understanding of Tarcoola's very near surface structural conditions. Tunkillia Gold Project: Under Round 2 of the ADI programme Barton has commenced trialling Portable PPB's detectORE technology, originally patented by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), across high priority Tarcoola targets. The technology offers the potential to revolutionise testing with gold results available in-field in as little as 8 hours' time versus several weeks for conventional lab-based assays.

Barton completed Phase 1 orientation sampling at the Tarcoola Gold Project (Tarcoola) in collaboration with CSIRO during December 2021 and is awaiting lab analysis results. Round 3 ADI funding will be utilised to extend these trials to the Tunkillia Project.