Good potential there I think. Grade is king and Nuggety was very...

Good potential there I think. Grade is king and Nuggety was very rich. Those old timer miners were clever old chaps, they didn't miss much. If they stopped mining, it's probably because the reef petered out. Mostly the old timers didn't give up that easily if the grade was good, they would normally keep sinking shafts after the reef peters out to look for a new reef. It looks like that worked for them a few times as there are definitely more than one high grade shoot at Nuggety, so they mined out one shoot then found another one. But eventually their detective skills drew blanks.

There is however good potential for repeats of Nuggety reef at depth out of reach of the old timers.

The Nuggety reef followed the granite contact. My first thought is that the reef formed at the competency contrast. Regional stresses cause strain in the rocks. Because granite is very rigid it doesn't deform and this focusses all the stress around the edges of the granite into the softer rock. This opens up well defined cracks in the softer rock that follow the granite contact which fill with quartz and gold, forming reefs.

I'm not sure whether the reefs are formed due to competency contrast. If they did, then there is a good chance there will be more as they follow the granite contact down to depth.