The Golden Past
The Dargues Reef Project is located within the Majors Creek and the Araluen Goldfields, the largest alluvial goldfield in NSW. Since the initial discovery of gold in 1851, production records indicate that more 40tons (+1.25Moz) of gold has been produced from gold deposits in the Braidwood-Araluen area. An estimated 98% of the gold produced was worked from alluvial sources, with the remainder from underground gold workings.
The Dargues Reef ore body was originally discovered in the 1870’s by Mr James Dargues, with the development of a small open cut and the sinking of a shaft. Additional shafts were excavated between 1870 and 1891 and then again between 1914 and 1916. Historic production from Dargues Reef was minimal, approximately 2,000 tons @ 14g/t gold.
Cortona and their predecessors have held Exploration and Mining Leases over the project site since 2002 with the intention of identifying additional hard rock gold resources. In 2004, an ongoing drilling programme commenced at Dargues Reef. The programme consisted of a number of deep drill holes targeting depth extensions of the known mineralisation and also exploring for additional shallow near mine lodes. The drilling program established that apart from traditional footwall and hangingwall mineralisation gold hosted lodes could also occur up to 60m north of the contact with the ‘footwall’ diorite dyke. Recent exploration has located several shallow mineralised occurrences, such as Chinaman's, Ruby Lode and Hughen prospects, all within hundreds of metres of the proposed underground development. Since 2004, approximately 300 drillholes have been drilled at Dargues Reef.
The identified global resources and reserves at Dargues Reef now stand at 1.613Mt @ 6.3g/t (327,000oz of gold). An underground mining operation with a mining inventory of 1.58Mt @ 5.12g/t (248,900 oz of gold) is planned. Following the approvals process, construction of the mine infrastructure is scheduled for 2011 with gold production from Dargues Reef in early 2012.
