Mt Isa Mines held ground at the Highway gold mine in the 1950s not 1980s as I previously posted. The description of the Highway gold mine sounds very similar to the description of the Coronation prospect about to be drilled by Sunshine Metals some 2.5km to the north. Even the surface gold grade are similar. Fingers crossed the surface gold leads to deeper sulphide pipes of pyrite-chalcopyrite similar to those at Highway-Reward discovered in the 1980s. It appears from the reports that the Highway-Reward sulphide was treated at the Thalanga plant which was in production at the time.
The Highway gold mine after initial mining led to a shallow oxide gold resource of 171,000
[email protected]/t gold, this was mined in the late 1980s. Given the rock chip results up to 13.8g/t gold from Coronation there is the realistic target of an oxide gold deposit near surface akin to the Highway gold mine. This could be an early cash flow toll treatment option if proven to exist. The copper-gold sulphide pipes were below 100m and mined by underground methods.
Sunhsine Metals state:
"The Highway pipe was initially discovered in 1953 when road workers sampled a heavy white mineral in a road cutting. The mineral was identified by the government geologist as barite and was subsequently sampled for gold. Mount Isa Mines (1954) was the first of a number of companies to begin testing the mineral potential. Noranda Exploration Company (1964) and Aberfoyle (1983) identified a small oxide gold Resource at Highway (171Kt @ 4.4g/t Au). The small Au Resource was mined as an open pit by North Queensland Resources from 1987-1989. The Reward massive sulphide pipe was discovered in 1987 after exploration by various companies in the area. The main Reward pyrite-chalcopyrite pipe occurs under 100m combined thickness of Tertiary fluviatile sediments (Campaspe Formation) and deeply weathered gossanous volcanic rocks."
The Northern Miner 30 September 1954 -
$2+ billion of metals in the ground at Liontown which will IMHO be expanded with drilling and an upgraded JORC resource prior to scoping study/PFS/DFS which will put numbers around development potential. Drilling of very prospective targets led by Coronation to come soon.
DYOR. Not investment advice. Many a drill hole has ruined a good exploration theory. In my view JORC resources are assets, especially when high grade (top quartile for grade).
