DATE: Thursday 16th April 1998 - 5.30pm for 6pm
VENUE: 1st Floor, Rugby Club, Rugby (Crane) Place, Sydney
SPEAKERS: Mr Wally Bucknell
TOPIC: "The Discovery of the Centenary Gold Deposit, Darlot, Western Australia"
The Centenary gold deposit is a blind orebody located 1.2km east of the Darlot Gold Mine,
Western Australia. The discovery hole was drilled in August 1996 and intersected 33m @ 8.0g/t
gold from 332m vertical depth. Resources currently stand at 8.4 million tonnes @ 7.7g/t for 2.1 million
ounces of contained gold. Production is expected to commence in the second quarter 1998.
The Centenary gold deposit is located within Plutonic Resources' wholly owned
Darlot property, situated 122km north of Leonora, Western Australia. The deposit
is 1.2km east of the open pit of the Darlot Gold Mine.
The Lake Darlot region has a relatively long history of gold mining, with the first
gold discovered in 1894. This discovery started a gold mining boom, lasting until 1910,
with the region proving to be one of the richest alluvial fields in Western
Australia. Historical records indicate that most of the gold production
from the Lake Darlot mining centre occurred between 1898 and 1913, with approximately 30,000 tonnes
@ 15.8g/t gold production reported. Much more gold was known to have been taken from alluvial
surface workings and was presumably never recorded.
The area was extensively worked for gold in quartz lodes, deep leads and alluvium.
Much of this activity was centred on the hills and creeks below the prominent Mt. Pickering breakaway.
The Major mines at the time were King of the Hills, St. George, Monte Cristo
and Zangbar, all of which are located within the current mining lease, M37/155.
In the early 1980's, modest exploratory investigations were undertaken by
Hawk Investments and Gemex. Sundowner Minerals N.L. conducted more active exploration from 1986 to 1988
and commenced open cut mining at Monte Cristo in 1988. In December 1992, Darlot was acquired by
Plutonic Resources Limited as part of its purchase of the Forsayth group
of companies. Open cut mining of the Darlot orebody continued until
December 1995 and underground mining of the Darlot orebody commenced
in October 1995. The open pit produced 2.6 million tonnes of ore @ 4.6g/t gold for 365,000 ounces of gold.
To September 1997 the underground operations had produced 930,000 tonnes of ore for 92,000 ounces of gold.
The discovery hole into the Centenary deposit was drilled in August 1996, about 1,200m east of the existing pit
at the Darlot Gold Mine. The orebody was intersected at a depth of 322-365m during a 20-hole 320 x 320m step-out
diamond drilling programme. The Centenary deposit is quite a separate
orebody to the Darlot orebody but is being accessed by an extension decline directly from the
Darlot underground workings.
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