Great Basin still bullish on Burnstone

The company undertook the infill drilling at surface to tighten up on the evaluation and structural geometry of certain mining blocks.

Burnstone is located about 80km southeast of Johannesburg and just east of Balfour, in Mpumalanga.

Great Basin Gold said surface exploration had also recommenced at Burnstone, with the initiation of the shallow basin edge target evaluation programme, run under the South Rand Basin Project.

"The team is integrating existing geological information with the detail afforded by underground exposures. This will, in due course, provide real-time updating of the geological and structural models, which will, in turn, assist with short to medium-term mine planning," said Great Basin Gold president and CEO Ferdi Dippenaar.

At Hollister, Great Basin's other flagship project, the company reported the emergence of another high grade pay shoot on the Clementine #18 vein structure in the western part of the ore body.

The Hollister Mine is located in the northeastern part of the Carlin Trend, about 80km from Elko, Nevada.

Great Basin Gold said there were significant advances in the integration of existing geological and geophysical data with new structural interpretations, leading to a number of new exploration follow-up targets.

"Our decision to continue with exploration at Hollister during 2010 continues to deliver results," said Dippenaar.

"The emergence of a new pay shoot will deliver short-term benefits, and our work on the larger Hollister Property indicates the existence of a similar ore body to the one currently being trial mined," he added.

Dippenaar said an excellent geological and structural platform was emerging at Hollister for the discovery of further gold and silver-bearing vein systems.

"Continued integration of the data available is paying dividends in improving our predictive models," he said.