Rotorua gold rush

A Canadian company is spending millions of dollars on a gold hunt near Rotorua that could reap hundreds of jobs.

Glass Earth, a Canada-based company, is digging for gold between Rotorua and Taupo.

If it hits paydirt, an open cast or underground gold mining operation could follow, bringing hundreds of jobs to the region.

The company hopes its multimillion-dollar gold hunt could result in a multibillion-dollar gold mine. A major aerial survey has been made of the region and the company has followed it up by drilling 300m into the earth near Atiamuri for core samples, which should hopefully yield traces of the precious substance.

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.

While the rural operation has now closed and the samples are being analysed in Wellington, a second drilling site is about to spin into action on forestry land owned by Carter Holt Harvey.

Glass Earth's chief operating officer Simon Henderson said he could not make any prediction on the odds of the current exploration programme successfully striking gold and a gold mine following.

However, the company believed it had been worthwhile to spend $6 million - and counting - on it.

The earth between Rotorua and Taupo was what he called "elephant" territory, in that it was similar to the land surrounding the gold-rich Martha Hill mine in Waihi.

That 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.

"At the end of the day it's a call I can't make," Mr Henderson said of the chances of success of the work carried out near Atiamuri.

"We are taking a gamble here. In the past the odds have been one in a thousand of finding gold. That kind of figure disenchants a lot of investors and there has been a real exodus of money away from gold exploration. Our initial look at our first hole has been pretty interesting though."

Mr Henderson said he hoped to have a better idea of whether there was "mineable" quantities of gold in about two to three weeks. 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.

"We have reduced the one in a thousand odds down to roughly one in 20 and one in 50," Mr Henderson said.

The aerial surveys identified more than 100 potential exploration sites with characteristics similar to Martha Hill.

These were narrowed down to the 10 most likely prospects for drilling.

Six were near the highway linking Rotorua and Taupo, three were near Waihi and one west of Te Puke, in a previously-mined gold vein known as Muir's Reef.