The Bonanza grades continue for Ballymore as it looks to reopen one of Australia’s highest grade historical gold mines.
A run of premium gold intersections hitting almost 130g/t has confirmed the high-grade tenor of an extension from the historic Duffer Lode, giving Ballymore Resources impetus to dust off the restart button at the Dittmer Mine in northern Queensland, last producing 54Moz of gold over 16 years throughout the 1930s and 1940s.
Ballymore will study the viability of kickstarting the historic mine after the last 28 holes hit high-grade mineralisation, with two of the latest just 20 metres below the surface-level exploration drive.
Ballymore Chairman Nicholas Jorss said newly discovered extensions persisting to within 20 metres of underground workings was a great starting point to fast track an investigation into reopening one of the nation’s highest grade gold mines.
“The new lode remains open along strike and down dip, with no indication to date that we are nearing its limits,” Mr Jorss said.
“The Dittmer deposit is surrounded by more than two kilometres of other shallow and extremely high-grade historic workings which have never been drill tested. Our recent geochemical work has shown the surrounding region is highly anomalous for both gold and copper. We also have several geophysical targets and further significant old workings along a 20km trend line which indicates this could be part of a much larger gold/copper system.”
“We are ramping up our efforts to explore this exciting region whilst we commence a concept study to investigate a near term mine opening at Dittmer.”
The high-grade Dittmer mine was discovered in 1934, and while it only produced 54,000 ounces of gold through to 1951, mining techniques have improved slightly in the past half-century. With grades as lucrative as these, Dittmer could shape into a near-term producer of high-quality ounces from a new golden system.
Gold has not yet hit lofty predictions of US$2600 an ounce made by some analysts but has certainly restamped its seemingly eternal lustre, with nations and haven investors pouring money into the sector as mines are earmarked for reopening across the world.
Ballymore now has concept study work underway on a potential reopening with the existing mining lease as it further explores the extent of a highly mineralised and undrilled system.
High-grade results:
- 4.3m @ 10.68 g/t Au, 1.9 g/t Ag & 0.12% Cu including
0.35m @ 129.43 g/t Au, 17.8 g/t Ag & 1.24% Cu - 3.85m @ 26.04 g/t Au, 1.9 g/t Ag & 0.11% Cu including
2.0m @ 49.60 g/t Au, 3.1 g/t Ag & 0.17% Cu - 4.9m @ 3.85 g/t Au, 1.0 g/t Ag including
0.7m @ 25.96 g/t Au, 4.1 g/t Ag
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