Mineral Exploration History of the Castlemaine, Woodend, Yea and Part of Bacchus Marsh 1:100 000 Map Areas

VIMP Report 63 Mineral exploration history of the Castlemaine, Woodend, Yea and part of Bacchus Marsh 1:100 000 map areas D. F. Hutchinson March 1999 Bibliographic reference: HUTCHINSON, D.F., 1999. Mineral exploration history of the Castlemaine, Woodend, Yea and part of Bacchus Marsh 1:100 000 map areas. Victorian Initiative for Minerals and Petroleum Report 63. Department of Natural Resources and Environment. © Crown (State of Victoria) Copyright 1999 Geologicial Survey of Victoria ISSN 1323 4536 ISBN 0 7306 9445 3 This report may be purchased from: Business Centre, Department of Natural Resources and Environment, 8th Floor, 240 Victoria Parade, East Melbourne, Victoria 3002 For further technical information contact: Manager, Geological Survey of Victoria, Department of Natural Resources and Environment, P O Box 500, East Melbourne, Victoria 3002 Acknowledgements The author wishes to thank G. Ellis for formatting the document and R. Buckley for editing the document. MINERAL EXPLORATION HISTORY – CASTLEMAINE, WOODEND, YEA, BACCHUS MARSH 1 Contents Abstract 3 1 Introduction 4 2 History of MELBOURNE exploration 6 2.1 Primary gold (historic goldfields) 6 2.2 Primary gold under cover 8 2.3 Alluvial gold 8 2.4 Base metals 9 2.5 Kaolin 9 2.6 Coal 9 3 Exploration programs 11 References 87 Appendix 1 101 Summary of expired exploration licences in MELBOURNE Appendix 2 110 Summary of companies and exploration targets in MELBOURNE Appendix 3 118 Location of expired exploration licences in MELBOURNE Appendix 4 135 Summary of geochemical surveys in MELBOURNE Appendix 5 153 Summary of work conducted at each prospect (mines, reefs, leads etc) in MELBOURNE Appendix 6 161 EL 411 - Drill hole summary Appendix 7 164 EL 1253 (Ex EL 618) - Drill hole summary Appendix 8 177 EL 1513 - Drill hole summary Appendix 9 180 EL 1530 and 1531 - Drill hole summary Victorian Initiative for Minerals and Petroleum (VIMP) report series 183 List of figures 1 MELBOURNE location map 5 2 Deep leads over Castlemaine 1:100 000 mapsheet 10 List of tables 1 EL 17 and 22 - Drill hole summary 13 2 EL 54 - Drill hole summary 15 3 EL 719 - Drill hole summary 27 4 EL 827 - Drill hole summary 30 5 EL 872 - Drill hole summary 31 6 EL 888 - Drill hole summary 34 7 EL 954 - Drill hole summary 36 8 EL 1150 - Drill hole summary 39 9 EL 1205 - Drill hole summary 41 10 EL 1325 - Drill hole summary 49 2 MINERAL EXPLORATION HISTORY - CASTLEMAINE, WOODEND, YEA, BACCHUS MARSH 11 EL 1346 - Drill hole summary 50 12 EL 1498 - Drill hole summary 55 13 EL 1520 - Peak stream sediment soil and rock chip geochemistry results 56 14 EL 1523 - Drill hole summary 59 15 EL 1547 - Drill hole summary 63 16 EL 1603 - Trench sampling 65 17 EL 2511 - Drill hole summary 73 18 EL 3401 - Drill hole summary 76 19 EL 3637 - Drill hole summary 84 MINERAL EXPLORATION HISTORY – CASTLEMAINE, WOODEND, YEA, BACCHUS MARSH 3 Abstract This report provides a summary of the work programs conducted by mineral exploration companies within the Castlemaine, Woodend, Yea and northern half of the Bacchus Marsh 1:100 000 mapsheet area (MELBOURNE) since the introduction of the Exploration Licensing (EL) system in 1965. Since that time, 127 licences have expired within the area. A total of 109 ELs are described in this report, the other 18 ELs are not described due to a variety of reasons including non-submission of reports, reports not available in the departmental library, cancelled licences which have amalgamated into current licences, work programs conducted outside the MELBOURNE area or exploration data still confidential due to ongoing mining licences. This report provides summaries of the exploration conducted in each EL including stream sediment, soil and rock chip geochemical, geophysical and drilling data. The tables and maps in this report provide further information on the MELBOURNE EL work programs. Tables include details of the geochemical and drilling programs undertaken within the ELs, principal exploration targets, prospects where work has taken place, the time period the licences were held for and expenditure levels for each EL. Maps indicate the location of each EL. Past mining has not extracted all of the gold from MELBOURNE and the area remains highly prospective for gold, base metals and other commodities with modern exploration techniques increasing the chances of discovering a new economic mineral deposit. The vast majority of exploration companies have targeted primary and/or alluvial gold. Antimony, tungsten, molybdenum, copper, zinc, nickel, platinum group metals, arsenic, coal and kaolin have also been explored for. 4 MINERAL EXPLORATION HISTORY - CASTLEMAINE, WOODEND, YEA, BACCHUS MARSH 1 Introduction together with other GIS data, is available for purchase from the Geological Survey of Victoria. This report presents a complete overview of the previous mineral exploration work undertaken within the Castlemaine, Woodend, Yea and · Appendix 5 is a summary of the exploration northern half of the Bacchus Marsh 1:100 000 work completed at each modern exploration mapsheet area (MELBOURNE). The prospect (historic mine, reef, lead) within information contained within this report is MELBOURNE. constrained by the amount of information given in the company reports which ranges from very The drilling tables within this report little (particularly in the late 1960's and early summarise all drilling conducted within an EL, 1970's) to extensive (1980's to recent). including significant results. A gold cut-off of 0.5 g/t has been used in this report, with values MELBOURNE is situated in central Victoria above this deemed to be significant or (see Fig. 1) and contains approximately 38 anomalous and at a level that would trigger mineral fields including the Castlemaine, further interest in a grass roots exploration Daylesford, Maldon and Heathcote goldfields of program. RAB drilling is discussed in the body the 'world class' Ballarat Gold Province and the of the text. Ghin Ghin, Mount Egerton and Mount Piper goldfields of the Melbourne Gold Province. The MELBOURNE area contains many Over 300 tonnes of gold has been recovered significant historical gold mines including the from MELBOURNE. The Bacchus Marsh and Wattle Gully mine near Castlemaine, the Lal Lal coal fields also occur in the area. German and Beehive mines at Maldon and the Ajax mine at Daylesford. Historically worked Exploration data is summarised in the deep leads include the Campaspe and Guildford following appendices: Plateau deep leads in the northwest of MELBOURNE. Currently, gold mining occurs Appendix 1 summarises the companies that · at Maldon and Mount Egerton. have conducted exploration in the area, the exploration target, the time period the Antimony from Comadai, iron ore and brown tenement was held, the expenditure and the coal from Lal Lal, and diatomite from work undertaken (drilling, geochemistry, Redesdale, Newham and Moranding have also geophysics, literature surveys and been extracted in the past. Currently, mines in mapping). the area produce substantial quantities of kaolin, brown coal and granite dimension stone. · Appendix 2 lists the exploration companies Extractive industries produce sand, clay, gravel in alphabetical order with the EL title, time and crushed rock valued at $100 million period and exploration target included. annually, mostly for the Melbourne market. A complete description of the geology and mineral · Appendix 3 presents the locations of the resources of MELBOURNE can be found in ELs over MELBOURNE. Edwards et al. (1997). · Appendix 4 is a summary of the stream sediment, rock chip, soil, costean and bulk sampling programs undertaken within MELBOURNE, it includes the area and year the work was completed, the type and number of samples, the sample mesh size, the analytical method, the detection limit, and the elements analysed. Peak results for the geochemistry surveys are given within tables in the text with all results quoted in parts per million (ppm) unless otherwise stated. NOTE: Digital soil and stream sediment geochemical data for MELBOURNE, 6 MINERAL EXPLORATION HISTORY - CASTLEMAINE, WOODEND, YEA, BACCHUS MARSH 2 History of MELBOURNE extensions to known reef workings with follow up bulk sampling, R/C and diamond drilling for exploration resource and structural data. The majority of exploration within Barkstead MELBOURNE has targeted alluvial and primary gold, with areas of past mining and Exploration in this area was for gold known mineralisation being the focus for most mineralisation associated with reefs and faults companies. More than $5.5 million has been including extensions to known workings spent on grassroots tenement exploration in (EL 2020). Mapping, soil, dump and rock chip MELBOURNE since 1965. Large low grade sampling was conducted by M.T. Motton over open-cut style and/or high grade reef gold various prospects in the Barkstead area mineralisation has been a common target for including the Try Again and Fighting Mac the companies exploring MELBOURNE with prospects. Drilling and geophysics was also the Maldon (Alliance Gold Mines NL), Wattle carried out at the Fighting Mac prospect but Gully (Duketon Goldfields NL) and Mount the work failed to locate significant Egerton (Tech-Sol Resources Pty Ltd) gold mineralisation. mines representing the results of the most successful recent exploration. Blackwood Significant current (1999) work being conducted Exploration in the Blackwood area was directed in MELBOURNE includes: towards locating large tonnage, disseminated, low grade gold and silver mineralisation associated with carbonaceous pyritic shales and Range River Gold NL search for extensions · high grade, low tonnage gold quartz reefs and repetitions of gold mineralisation at (Els 719, 1523 & 3430). Work included drilling Daylesford. of the Yankee-Countess and Butchers reefs, bulk sampling of the Yankee mine tailings, · Alliance Gold Mines NL use of costeaning on the Comet reef and geological hydrogeochemical and geophysical mapping of the area. This work was conducted techniques to explore for a major primary by various companies including Carpentaria gold deposit under basalt cover around Exploration Company Pty Ltd, Triad Minerals Creswick.

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