The Woods Point Gold Project
Background & History
Morning Star Gold’s key project area (220km2) is centred at the historic mining town of Woods Point and nearby Matlock (to the southeast) and Gaffney's Creek (to the northwest), all of which are located in the lower part of the Victorian Alps roughly 50kms southwest of Mount Buller. Woods Point is accessed in around 3.5 hours by road from Melbourne via Healesville & Marysville which is some 50kms to the west. Morning Star has literally hundreds of historic mines & gold bearing ‘dykes’ on its tenements around Woods Point, Matlock & Gaffney's Creek, many with rich production history of high-grade gold from Quartz Reefs and alluvial sources.
The area encompassing the Woods Point goldfield and the multiple high-grade gold bearing dyke structures located north towards Jamieson & south towards Walhalla formed one of the most significant mining fields in Australian history. Historical gold production was at least 155 tonnes or around 6 million ounces of over a century of mining with an average production grade exceeding 27 grams per tonne. The bulk of this recorded production came from just a handful of mines. One of the key historical production hubs in this area was the famous ‘Morning Star’ mine, which is situated adjacent to Woods Point Township on the main power grid. The Morning Star mine produced almost 1 million ounces at 27 grams per tonne, operating fairly continuously between 1861 & 1963 with a break after Jan 1939 due to devastating 'Black Friday' bush fires across eastern Victoria. During the early 1940's, the Morning Star was Australia's biggest gold mine. Famous reefs of that era at the mine have evocative wartime names such as Achilles, Exeter, Stirling and Lancaster.The Morning Star mine along with Walhalla ensured that this goldfield was 3rd behind Bendigo & Ballarat as Victoria's biggest gold production centre.
Current Stage 3 is explained below. Mining Focus Zones (120-240m depth are displayed & explained in the graphic at this link:
Morning Star Zones of Focus - Stage 4 (484.57 Kb)
Stage 1:
Morning Star Mine Redevelopment - COMPLETED in late 2007
Historically the Morning Star mine was around 940 metres deep with one large vertical shaft & a smaller, deeper inclined shaft, over 23 levels in total. MCO has dewatered & completely refurbished all infrastructures to ~310 metres below surface. Drives between Levels 4 and 9 have been systematically surveyed, mapped and re-sampled by way of Reconnaissance & Channel Sampling, much of which was reported over the past few quarters. Gold assay grades reported were very encouraging with the first 160 dyke + reef samples returning an average grade exceeding 78 grams per tonne. The Shaft Refurbishment and Reconstruction stage is now completed as planned at just below Level 10 of the Morning Star mine. This has been a program which originally commenced back in 1998 and has cost around $12M. The completion of Stage 1 paved the way for the extensive underground resource focused diamond drilling program MCO completed in 2008 with two Company-owned and operated drill rigs from 5 cuddy positions on Level 9 of the mine. This drilling which encountered some stunning grades in intersections and multiple visible gold hits has outlined further production opportunities in the Maxwell Zone near 8L south of the mine and Kenny Zone near the north 7L.
Stage 2:
Diamond Drilling the upper area of the ‘Gap Zone’ - Completed in late 2008
MCO knows there are substantially under-explored and undeveloped areas within the Morning Star mine. As a result, MCO’s plan has been to create underground access for extensive channel sampling & an underground diamond drilling program targeting areas of the mine which were largely unexplored & undeveloped by the last operators of the mine - Western Mining Corp Ltd. (Gold Mines of Australia). The primary exploration area MCO targeted was the upper part of the Gap Zone below Whitelaw's Reef and above the rich Achilles Zone. This area broadly exists between Level 7 and Level 15 (250 - 650 metres deep) of the existing mine and is called the ‘Gap Zone’. This area is estimated to contain at least 65 million tonnes of highly prospective dyke material and is intersected by the main vertical mineshaft, which provides excellent access for exploration drilling and development.
Extensive underground drilling from Level 9 targeting the aforementioned 'Gap Zone' (between the 250m and 650m depths) commenced in Q4 2007. Two company owned and operated Kempe Diamond Drills drilled over 5,000 metres of LTK48 sized core into known auriferous zones and quartz reefs in the Morning Star mine. A brief depiction of this program (and others planned) is provided on this website under ‘Morning Star Mine – Drilling Overview H2 2007’. Drill holes (MS399-MS427) were reported in early Q1 2008 to be hugely successful in delineating new mining zone targets. Later Gap area drilling highlights can be found at this link:
GAP ZONE DRILLING UPDATE - JULY 2008 (0.69 Mb)
Why does the ‘Gap Zone’ within the Morning Star Gold Mine exist?
Several consortiums & companies ran the Morning Star mine since its inception in 1861 as the Morning Star Mine Co. Ltd. Among those was the mine’s major operator Gold Mines of Australia (Western Mining Ltd). WMC had been successfully mining for rich returns since 1934, working their way down through the ‘dyke’ or host rock containing repetitive gold bearing quartz reefs. Their success had included massive returns (greater than 100,000 ounces per level) of high grade gold from famous reefs such as ‘Burns’ around Levels 5 & 6 and ‘Whitelaws’ between Levels 4 & 7.
The catastrophic ‘Black Friday’ Bush Fires of January 1939 wiped out the whole town of Woods Point and the entire above ground infrastructure at the Morning Star mine. The resultant lack of infrastructure, coupled with the outbreak of World War II which took away many miners, caused WMC to cease full-scale mining at the Level 9 underground and instead re-commence with far less manpower, a shaft sinking program targeting known quartz reefs & high grade assays, which had been interpreted from prior drilling. The sfat was sunk from 9L to 19L over this period (1,000 feet vertically) and development & stoping (mining then recommenced between Levels 16-19 underground, where WMC found and mined the famous ‘Achilles’ & 'Stirling' & 'Lancaster' Reefs including the rich Black Stope on the 'Exeter Reef', which was one of the richest single stopes ever mined in Australia yielding more than 150,000 ounces of gold. The small team operating the sinking of the shaft for WMC was an ideal approach for a company and town so badly depleted by the Black Friday Fires and WWII over 1939. So successful was this approach, that by 1940 and for a few years hence, the Morning Star Gold Mine was one of the biggest and richest in Australia.
WMC continued operating the Morning Star mine between Levels 19 & 23 - with small forays only above the Level 16 - until late 1959 when low Gold prices (fixed at USD35oz), the high cost of electricity (as Woods Point was not yet on the Victorian state grid) & their hunger for W.A. nickel led them to close all gold mining operations in the Eastern states. Consequently, the Morning Star mine was shutdown & never mined between Levels 7 & 15 underground leaving what we believe is a huge ‘gap’ zone of potentially ore bearing dyke. Our exploration resource target for this ‘Gap Zone’ is between 1.5mm- 2 mm ounces, based on the known tonnage of dyke, the number of repetitive quartz reefs known to exist and the production returns of gold ounces per vertical metre within the mine, which is 1200-5000 ounces per metre historically. With the gold price at today's levels (exceeding AU$1,200 per ounce), the 'Gap Zone' has become a very key target for MCO. Already significant resources have been proven from drilling into ostensibly virgin areas of this Gap Zone at Maxwell's and Kenny's reefs. More drilling is planned.
Stage 3:
Recommencing Gold Production at the Morning Star Gold Mine - H2 2010 -->
A comprehensive new section of the website will shortly be added to detail our new mining plans and project timelines. A brief overview of these plans is located on this website in the "About MCO - In Focus" section. The company aims to produce gold commencing in H2 2010 and well beyond - the first gold production in around 50 years for the Morning Star mine. The overall plan is to re-enter existing stopes in shallow, dewatered, partially developed areas of the mine between surface at 280m underground, where channel sampling over 2007-2009 proved many in-situ high grade ore targets. The company intends to mill its own gold at the Morning Star mine site via a proposed onsite gravity gold plant being constructed by Gekko Systems of Ballarat in Victoria. The mill is expected to be located onsite in June-July 2010 and be operational subject to various stringent regulatory approvals as soon as possible thereafter. The mill has a capacity of 10 tonnes per hour and is modular.
Stage 3: Current Mining Areas of Focus (484.57 Kb)
Stage 4:
Exploring Rich Regional Ore Bodies (Regional Mines & Dykes) - ONGOING 2010-2013
MCO knows there are also several substantially under-explored areas on its current tenements including high-production old mines and dykes, many of which produced high grade gold only above the water table as historically, sub-artesian water level mining was hampered by lack of power to run pumps and uncompromising iron rich (mafic) dykes which beyond the near surface 'weathered zones' were impossible to mine by hand. The topography of the area with it's steep gullies and spurs traditionally hampered mine developments above the 650m above sea level topography as water supplies were limited above that height.
Running concurrently with the recommencement of gold production at the Morning Star Gold Mine (and gravity mill installation), is MCO’s Regional Exploration Program. The Regional Exploration Program has been expanded since regional tenements were significantly increased around the Woods Point production hub in 2006-07. Morning Star Gold NL (MCO) is endeavoring to establish a viable exploration resource potential in the surrounding old mines and under-explored dykes contained within its 2 Exploration Licences and 1 Mining Licence held 100% by MCO and it's two other 100% held Mining Licences, which are being farmed into by Ample Rise Investments (a Chinese investment company). The Joint Venture announced late in 2009 will see Ample Rise spend $4.5M to eventually gain 51% of MIN 5241 (Loch Fyne & All Nations) and MIN 5299 (Rose of Denmark, Hunts + Dempsey). Morning Star will operate and manage the JV programs. Regional exploration will also be increased on Morning Star's 100% held tenements MIN 5009 (Waverly, Tingha, Comet & Morning Star hill) and MCO's 100% held Exploration Licences EL 5079 (Reliance, Wallaby, Alhambra) and EL 4320 (Little Comet - Garibaldi)
MCO’s key regional targets include historic mines and dykes such as the 'Waverly' (+50,000 ounces production), ‘All Nations’ (132,000 ounces), the ‘Comet’ (64,000 ounces), and the ‘Loch Fyne’ (109,000 ounces). These mines all produced the majority of their golden ounces from very shallow workings. MCO plans to test the depth of these dykes and the presence of deeper quartz reefs through deep diamond drilling from 2010 and beyond. One of several major targets is at the Waverly line of workings, which yielded ~50,000 ounces of gold from near surface workings. The Waverly dyke is ~5kms long and the majority of its strike length is MCO held (MIN 5009). A first program of reconnaissance drilling at the Waverly line was completed in 2009 with 6 diamond drill holes, 2 visible gold strikes at virgin dyke depths and much information gained on the shape & orientation of the Waverly dyke beaneath the existing shallow workings. Ad adit portal at the junction of the Waverly dyke and the Tingha track - (which has received a major upgrade recently) - provides a significant underground exposure to the Waverly dyke and an all-weather mapping & exploration program is being designed. Whilst a Woods Point alpine Victorian Winter presents challenges for surface drilling, weather permitting, drilling on all regional dyke targets will be ongoing in the warmer months and underground drilling from adits or known shafts will be prioritised.
