Gold mine may be on the way

There's definitely gold in Rotorua - and maybe a gold mine on the way.

"Very encouraging" results from exploratory drilling in the Tahunataara countryside south of Rotorua by the Canadian-owned company Glass Earth has been stepped up after traces of the precious substance were detected.

However, Glass Earth's chief operating officer, Simon Henderson, said he could not yet divulge any details as to how much gold had been found, or whether it was enough to warrant the establishment of an open-cast or underground mine.

Such a mine like the one at Martha Hill in Waihi could yield millions for the local economy and generate hundreds of jobs in the district.

The Martha Mine was founded on exploratory work made in the early 1980s, some of it by Mr Henderson. It is now an $8 billion business. The area has produced about 10 million ounces of gold over the last century.

Mr Henderson emphasised he could not give anything away and any announcement would have to be made publicly through the stock exchange, as Glass Earth was a publicly listed company.

Geologists were drilling down 400m in four separate drill sites south of Rotorua in their quest for gold and the company had recently set up a headquarters at Te Papa Tipu Innovation Park (formerly known as the Forest Research campus).

About 16 staff, including four geologists and a geophysicist, were now employed by Glass Earth in Rotorua.

"We are fine-tuning to see where we can find economic mineralisation," Mr Henderson said.

"All our targets are south of Rotorua, east as far as Reporoa, and we are also looking north as far as the Mamaku rise, and we will be drilling all the way through summer and most likely all though winter.

"We will be having a presence [in Rotorua] for the long haul. It's still way too early to say whether that will expand to a mining scenario.

"All I can say at this stage is that our results have been very encouraging."

Glass Earth is named for its focus on using cutting edge technology and data to "see" into the earth and determine whether deposits of gold lie under the surface.

Searching for gold in the Rotorua region had long been regarded as not worth the effort, mainly because of the 200m thick layer of volcanic ash that blankets the rock below it.

However, the advent of new technology had made the process a lot easier, particularly the Glass Earth company's technique of aerial mapping for underground magnetic and gravity data, which identified the possible location of mineral deposits.