Kaiser Reef Limited (ASX:KAU) has commenced drilling at the Nuggety Reef historic gold mine, located at the northern end of the Maldon historic gold mine in Victoria, Australia.
Maldon is positioned between Bendigo and Ballarat and is one of Victoria’s premier historic gold mining centres. The Nuggety Reef mine was one of, if not the, highest grade significant Australian gold mines with recorded production of 301,000 ounces at 187 g/t recovered gold.
The Nuggetty Reef was discovered in 1856 and produced 301,000 ounces of gold from 50,000 tonnes of ore averaging 187 g/t Au over a 10-year period. The reef was mined over a strike length of 350 metres with four shafts, sunk to a maximum depth of 238m. The Nuggety Reef is contained within the broader Nuggetty shear zone and is the most northern reef and mine in the Maldon Goldfield. The deposit is truncated by the Harcourt Granodiorite to the north and at depth, forming a south plunging footwall.
The Nuggetty Reef is situated within steep eastern dipping metasediments that have been contact metamorphosed to cordierite – andalusite hornfels. The mine workings strike north – south and comprise of two subvertical east dipping quartz reefs, referred to as the west reef and the east reef.
Surface Diamond Programme
The surface diamond drilling is targeting both the eastern and western reefs which are located within the main north-south Nuggetty shear zone. Historic diamond holes being followed up include NUGD01 (0.46m @ 205 g/t Au) and NUDG02 which returned 1.4m @ 9.78 g/t Au. These structures are modelled slightly outside of the shear zone. Additional holes will target confirming and infilling other historic results. The Nuggety shear zone continues to the south and the prospective target contact with the Harcourt granite remains essentially untested down plunge.
Further to the south, the underground drilling rig is continuing exploration from underground positions within the Union Hill decline. Early results have returned some excellent high-grade intervals. In the context of the “contained metal” that the first five of 11 drillholes returned an exceptionally high average “gram x metre” interval of 20.5 g/t gold. Most of the holes intercepted the Eaglehawk reef at its targeted location.
The Maldon Goldfield Maldon is located between Bendigo and Ballarat in the Victorian Goldfields and the licence area has produced over 1.74M ounces of gold at 28 g/t
Maldon is host to one of Australia’s highest grade historic gold mines, the Nuggety Reef, that produced 301,000 ounces of gold at 187 g/t. T
One of the Maldon’s key attributes is the extensive existing infrastructure and proximity to Kaiser’s gold processing plant (three km away). Rapid and low-cost development could be implemented with the existing mining fleet owned by Kaiser and experienced mining team for minimal capital cost.
For further information please visit: https://www.kaiserreef.com.au/
