Summit Minerals has sharpened its focus on the highly critical mineral antimony by adding the historic Magwood Mine tenement northwest of its exciting Windfall Antimony Project in New South Wales.
Once Australia’s primary source of Antimony, producing around 5,000 tonnes of SB concentrates at around 8.3%. the 160km square-kilometre tenement remains highly prospective for antimony and gold mineralisation.
The high-grade stibnite mineralisation was mined to a depth of around 300 metres via underground shafts and adits and is hosted within a 035-040º striking shear zone that dips steeply southeast.
Like Windfall, the new tenement is highly prospective for Hillgrove-style antimony-gold mineralisation,” Managing Director Jonathan King said.
“The tenement’s capture of the historic Magwood antimony mine and other workings supports this view.
“As with Windfall, no significant exploration has happened since the 1980s, attesting to the tremendous discovery potential latent in the project.
“We also remain cognisant of other mineralisation styles within the property, including copper and gold.
“The Magwood addition furthers our ambition to build a strong portfolio of exploration assets in the New England region that are highly prospective for antimony and gold.”
Next Steps
Other historic workings within the project area include the Rock Abbey (Sb) Mine, the Abroi and Allingham antimony deposits, Faulkner’s gold prospect and Drovers Copper Mine.
Future exploration within the title will focus on the previously established Antimony, gold, and copper mineralisation, starting at Magwood.
About the Magwood Antimony Mine
The Magwood mine was discovered in 1880. It consists of stibnite-quartz vein-style mineralisation within interbedded mudstones and sandstones. The mineralisation is sub-vertical and cuts into the side of a steep valley, where several adits were opened to access the ore. The mine was worked underground via a 297m deep shaft between 1941 and 1971, producing 3,107 tonnes of Antimony at an average grade of 20.5% Sb (Carlin Jr, 2010).
The historical production records indicate that the Magwood mine produced approximately 5,000 tonnes of antimony metal concentrates from 51,000 tonnes of ore at an estimated average life-of-mine grade of 8.3% Sb. The records reveal that the mineralisation extends beneath the historical workings. Nevertheless, the mine closed in 1971 in favour of the development of the Hillgrove antimony-gold mine.