Recent exploration success has opened up the potential to add a modern chapter to the story of one of the world’s richest ever gold fields.
Bendigo, in the Australian state of Victoria, can trace its gold rush legacy back to the 1850s when Mrs Kennedy and Mrs Farrell, wives of two workers from the Mt Alexander North pastoral property, discovered alluvial gold nuggets in Bendigo Creek while hand washing clothes.
Over the space of one year, Bendigo was transformed from a sheep station into a bustling town of 40,000 people with gold hunters coming from all parts of the globe in the hunt of precious metal riches.
That gold rush would label Bendigo as one of the richest producers of gold in the world, yielding over 700,000kg between 1851-1954.
It also saw Bendigo, in the 1880’s, deemed as the richest city in the world, with more gold found there between 1850 and 1900 than anywhere around the globe. Majestic buildings and monuments from the golden past still line the city’s main streets offering an ever-present reminder of the riches from the gold fields.
The Bendigo and nearby Ballarat gold discoveries has seen Victoria produce over 2400t of gold which is 32% of all the gold mined in Australia and almost two per cent of all the gold ever mined globally.
On a yield per area basis, Victoria has produced an average of 10.8kg of gold per kilometre squared – which is greater than any other Australian state.
Giant nuggets
The southern Australian state is also famous for producing most of the top 10 largest gold nuggets in history.
Considered by most authorities to be the biggest gold nugget ever found, the Welcome Stranger was found at Moliagul, Victoria, in 1869 by John Deason and Richard Oates. It weighed over 2,520 troy ounces (78kg; 173lb) gross and returned over 2,284 troy ounces (71.0kg; 156.6lb) net.
The next biggest known gold nugget was also found in Victoria, the giant Welcome Nugget weighing in at 2,218 troy ounces (69.0kg; 152.1lb).
Catalyst breakthrough
Now, over 170 years after the world-changing discovery by Mrs Kennedy and Mrs Farrell, the aptly named Catalyst Metals Limited (ASX: CYL) has achieved what it is describing as “a major breakthrough” in its push to find the extensions of the rich Bendigo Goldfield.
To date, exploration of the Whitelaw Gold Belt to the north of Bendigo by Catalyst has demonstrated keen similarities to the Bendigo Goldfield such as visible gold in quartz, high grade gold assays, strong arsenious haloes, and close relationships with host rock fold hinges.
The discovery of the Iris Zone has provided a significant, highly sought-after element to the prospectivity of the Whitelaw Gold Belt; the occurrence of a linked, but discrete high-grade mineralised body at depth beneath known mineralization.
Recent drilling by the company has returned multiple occurrences of visible gold in eight diamond drill cores from the Boyd’s Dam prospect within the Four Eagles Gold Project in Victoria. It has also discovered a new Iris Zone situated about 150m beneath the shallow mineralisation at Boyd’s Dam.
Catalyst has so far identified several high-grade areas of mineralization within proximity to one another (Boyd’s Dam, Hayanmi, Pickles, Cunneens, Eagle 5, Bullock, and Iris Zone). These areas of stacked, repetitive mineralization have the potential to change the project’s economics and could eventually all be mined from the one access tunnel.
“This is a pivotal breakthrough in our hunt for the extension of the Bendigo Goldfield,” Catalyst technical director, Bruce Kay, said.
“We have always suspected that there would be stacked gold zones below the shallow Boyd’s Dam mineralization but previous drilling has not been done with the optimal orientation.
The Iris Zone appears to be very consistent and visible gold is always exciting.”
Four Eagles Gold Project
The Four Eagles Gold Project is situated along the Whitelaw Gold Corridor, 70km north of the historic Bendigo Goldfield and is considered a major structural control of gold mineralization north of Bendigo.
The term Whitelaw Gold Belt has been adopted because Catalyst’s tenements are situated along the 100km long Whitelaw Fault which is extremely important in the genesis of gold deposits that have formed adjacent to the structure.
Victorian Government seismic and gravity data suggests that this large fault structure controlled the formation of the famous Bendigo gold deposits as well as gold mineralization at both the Four Eagles and Tandarra Gold Projects.
Catalyst manages the entire Whitelaw Gold Belt and has interests in 13 exploration licences and two retention licences which extend for 75km along the Whitelaw and Tandarra Faults north of Bendigo and in other areas north of the Fosterville and Inglewood gold fields.
The structural framework of the mineralization known at Boyd’s Dam has been demonstrated to be borne of a west-dipping ‘reverse’ fault, which has focused and introduced gold-bearing fluids into receptive locations along a shallow horizon of the host anticline.
This structure (the Western Shear) is but one of an array of structures, and to date, multiple parallel faults have been identified with multiple diamond drillhole intersections bearing quartz development and in parts anomalous to significant gold grades.
The newly discovered Iris Zone lies on one of these steep western shear zones and seems to mostly occupy the western limb of the Boyd’s Dam anticline.
Diamond drilling continues at the Four Eagles Gold Project with the focus placed on targets in the vicinity of the established Boyd’s Dam mineralization.
To date, Catalyst has extended the size of the gold footprint which is now around 6km long by 2.5km wide but is still only delineated by very broad spaced drilling with very few holes testing below the oxide zone.
The company has a significant ongoing exploration programme, which it hopes will be a “catalyst” for uncovering further major gold riches in one of the world’s most historic gold producing regions.
Recent Canadian Arrival
A new phase of the Canada to Australia gold rush was achieved recently with the arrival of the highly regarded Kirkland Lake Gold “down under”.
Australian Government arm, Austrade, says Australia’s proud mining history, the quality of its workers and high working standards were recently instrumental in bringing Canadian mining and exploration company Kirkland Lake Gold to the Victorian gold fields to operate the world-class Fosterville gold project.
Austrade says a rich gold mining tradition binds Australia and Canada. Both share vast mineral resources, abundant infrastructure, workable mining codes, and supportive legislation. Fosterville is on the boundary of an area that produced over 20Moz of gold in its time.
“There are a lot of similarities between our countries, including geology and technical capabilities,” Kirkland president and CEO, Tony Makuch, told Austrade.
“Plus, both have governments that are supportive and regulatory environments that are clear and concise. The standards are high and well prescribed. Like Canada, Australia is a mining-friendly country. Also, the investment community in Australia understands how to invest in a mining company. “When I am in Australia and look around, everyone is doing the same things as we do in Canada, just with a different accent!”
