Exploration Potential
The Company believes the Exploration Potential on its current Mining Licences is at least 4-5 million ounces of Gold.
Between 1995 and 1998 the Company conducted an extensive program of Drilling and Trenching at the Morning Star Hill site directly above the Morning Star mine and following this program, stated a Resource Potential for the Morning Star Mine from surface down to Level 8. This resource statement is not ratified under the current JORC 2004 guidelines but further modeling and exploration is being undertaken now to ensure a resource statement for the program area can be JORC compliant in the near future.
The historic estimate of resource referred to in the 1998 report by Morrie Goodz MSc, MBA, MAusIMM was around 430,000 ounces of Gold. (See pdf link at bottom of page).
Preliminary JORC Resource Statement by Morning Star Gold - Released to ASX in JULY 2008
Morning Star is currently digitising ~45,000 pages of old mine records left behind by GMA from 1934-59 period. In addition MCO's intensive resource drilling program over 2008 added to our overall in situ resources and knowledge of potential production zones. A preliminary statement of resources in accordance with JORC 2004 was made in July 2008 by MCO's consulting geologist. A statement of the potential gold endowment of Morning Star's overall tenements will also be made in the future. This is currently being assessed by Dr Peter Jackson our Director of Geology.
The link below is a graphic depicting some of the resource modelling work that was done for the July 2008 preliminary resource report. The graphic shows stopes and modelling on the 'V-Floor' of the Morning Star mine (the 'V-Floor' was extensively developed but only mined to a small extent by GMA in the 1950s).
Resource Definition - 'V-Floor' (0.55 Mb)
Additionally, MCO is hopeful that further exploration potential and gold endowment can be proved in its many Regional Dykes, which historically produced rich returns of high grade gold generally above the water table only. The first five priority dykes being prepared for further exploration via sampling programs and drilling are the Waverly, All Nations, Hunts, Wallaby and Tingha Dykes which collectively produced over 250,000 Ounces of Gold at high grade mainly within the near surface weathered zone.
An earlier statement of resources at Morning Star mine made in 1998 (pre-JORC 2004) can be found in the following link:
June 1998 Morning Star Resource Report (242.77 Kb)
