TIN M IN ES LIM ITED
CONSOLIDATED TIN MINES LIMITED
EPM 17875 Lynd River Extended
Annual Report to 27 March 2016
Michael Hicks April 2016
CONSOLIDATED TIN MINES LIMITED Page 1 of 13 ABN 57 126 635 606 ACN: 126 634 606 395 Lake Street North Cairns Qld 4870. Ph (07) 4032 3319 – Fax (07) 4027 9429 Email: [email protected]
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CONTENTS
1. Introduction ...... 3
2. Regional Geology ...... 5
3. Exploration History and Local Geology ...... 8
4. Exploration Activities in Current Period ...... 11
5. REFERENCES ...... 13
FIGURES Figure 1 EPM17875 Tenure Location Figure 2 EPM17875 Lynd River Extended 250K Geology Figure 3 Regional Geology 100K Geology Figure 4 Regional Sandridge Targets
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1. Introduction
Consolidated Tin Mines Ltd (Company, CSD) is exploring for tin mineralisation in north east Queensland. The Company has its operations base in Mt Garnet. The Company is exploring for hard rock and alluvial tin in the Mt Garnet area, this area being the southern half of Herberton Tin field.
The Company also has tenement holdings and undertakes tin exploration programs in the Lynd and Tate River areas, centred approximately 130 km west of Chillagoe. The Lynd/Tate holdings are over the historic Tate River alluvial tinfield (alluvial tin first mined in the 1880s) and the more recently discovered Lynd River alluvial tinfield (alluvial tin first mined in the 1970s). This tenement, EPM 17875, is part of the Lynd/Tate project, and it straddles the Lynd River.
The nearest town is Chillagoe, which is located 120 km north east of the tenement. The tenement is wholly contained within Bolwarra Station, a low intensity land use cattle station. Bolwarra is connected to Chillagoe by gazetted road of 75 kilometre length. Access to the tenement is via station tracks. Because of the alluvial mining in adjacent tenements from the 1970s, there is reasonable access to the northern part of the tenement. The tenement straddles the Lynd River, which in good wet seasons has continual flow all year. In drier years, the Lynd River is a series of waterholes by the end of the dry period. Access across the River can occur on rock bars through these no or low flow times.
Location of Tenements Block Sub-block TOWN 1297 F L M
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Figure 1: Tenement location
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2. Regional Geology
Basement geology within the tenement area is the Paleoproterozoic McDevitt Metamorphics, a multiply deformed greenschist to amphibolite metamorphosed sequence of metapelites and quartzose meta-arenites. An additional unit within the tenement are migmatitic granitoids to granite gneiss. The McDevitt Metamorphics, Dargalong Metamorphics and Etheridge Group metasediments to the south of the tenement area form the Paleoproterozoic aged craton, of north east Queensland, against which, and on which the Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Tertiary aged mineralisation of the Townsville-Cairns hinterland are located. This cratonisation occurred approximately 1500 million ago.
The McDevitt Metamorphics have been intruded by granitoid members of the Mesoproterozoic Fig Tree Hill Granite Complex. The western portion of the tenement is underlain by early Permian granitoids of the Brodies Camp Supersuite.
Tectonic activity against the eastern edge of the craton, in the Cairns hinterland, began with the development of the Hodgkinson Basin, an early to mid-Palaeozoic back arc basin. The basin filled with sediment eroded from the craton. The basin closed, with significant thrusting and structural shortening in mid Devonian times. The basin-craton edge is now marked by the large scale Palmerville Fault. This feature is to the east of the tenement area. Intrusive Silurian age granitoid plutons, part of the Blackmans Gap Complex occur within the craton close to the tenement area.
Areally and volumetrically significant Carboniferous and Permian acid intrusive and extrusive activity occurred in the Cairns hinterland, the general trend of intrusion and extrusive volcanics being of a parallel trend to the North West strike of the Palmerville fault. This igneous event was marked not just by its location along the Palmerville Fault, but by significant penetration into the craton, suggesting the pervasive structural dislocation of the craton, and the broad depth source for the igneous rocks. To be expected in such a setting, intrusive rocks have multiple intrusive natures. The setting could also be expected to generate ore mineralisation of a range of elements, and Permo- Carboniferous aged deposits of gold, tin, copper, zinc, lead, silver, tungsten and molybdenum occur within or adjacent to intrusive.
The tin mineral, cassiterite, is stable in the weathering environment, and is also a mineral with high specific gravity. These mineral properties favour concentration of cassiterite into alluvial systems that develop around eroding tin bearing intrusions. The Carboniferous aged McCord Granite is located to the north east of the tenement area adjacent to Tate River, and contributes cassiterite to local streams and the larger Tate River. Hardrock tin deposits are located to the east of, and upstream of the company tenement, in the Lynd River catchment.
The Cairns hinterland Palaeozoic basement was then covered by large Mesozoic and Tertiary marine ingress and regress events, and the sedimentation of generally flat lying marine and fluviatile sandstones. These sediments have been gradually eroded to expose the basement rocks.
Within the tenement area, late Mesozoic to early Tertiary aged, unconsolidated coarse gravel to sandstone occur as broad ridges on top of the basement. These ridges are believed to be the remnants of large fluviatile systems, that were draining westward CONSOLIDATED TIN MINES LIMITED Page 5 of 13 ACN: 126 634 606 395 Lake Street North Cairns Qld 4870 Ph. (07) 4032 3319
TIN M IN ES LIM ITED through the broad north east Queensland region. These Tertiary rivers drained tin mineralised granites, and cassiterite became concentrated into the river sediment, Current river systems do not overall parallel these Tertiary rivers. To the north of the tenement, a broad ridge, called the Pinnacle Creek Sandridge (named after a local creek), is believed to be the fluviatile sediment of a river once that flowed south west and is called the Ancestral Tate River. The tenement contains a portion of a second broad ridge, called the Kangaroo Sandridge, which is believed to be the fluviatile sediment of a river, called the Ancestral Lynd River. Both sandridges are 5 to 20 metre high above the general flat terrain, and several hundred metres wide. Current drainages eroding these sandridges have been mined for cassiterite using alluvial recovery methods. The sandridge itself, in limited areas has been mined for the cassiterite and recovered by alluvial methods. The current Lynd River is straddled by the tenement. Recent, unconsolidated sands and gravels occur within and form banks of the Lynd River.
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Figure 2: Regional Geology (1:250 000)
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3. Exploration History and Local Geology
Figure 3: Regional Geology (1:100 000)
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EPM17875 covers a section of a sandridge within which a current creek, Kangaroo Creek, has incised a channel. The sandridge is called the Kangaroo Creek Sandridge. It is considered that the Kangaroo Creek Sandridge is a part of an ancestral Lynd River.
Alluvial tin mineralisation occurs within unconsolidated sediment in the current creek, within colluvium draping off the sandridge, and within the sandridges themselves. The sandridge is the source of the tin, and the sandridge is being eroded. The largest part of the tenement, on the south side of the Lynd River has no mapped sandridge material, but widespread alluvial tin mineralisation suggests remnants of the sandridge development occurs within the tenement on the southern side of the Lynd River.
The Kangaroo Creek alluvial tin operation is a recent find, first worked in the early 1970s. Davis (RGC, 1991, CR 22860) recorded production up to 1990.
A small mining syndicate, the Fitzgerald family, produced about 10 tonne of tin concentrate within the western extent of the Kangaroo Creek Sandridge in the 1970s.
There was active mining through 1983-1985 by Alberta Mines Pty Ltd, a public company floated on these alluvial tin deposits. Reported exploration work is within open file company reports of Alberta Resources through the early to mid-1980s (CRs 14020, 14587, 14588, 15747). Alberta Resources produced 321.6 tonne of tin concentrate from recent alluvium within Kangaroo Creek, through 1983-1985, but mining of the Kangaroo Creek Sandridge did occur to a limited extent. Davis commented that an unknown volume was treated for this concentrate amount but it was likely that between 320,000 and 500,000 cubic metres was treated. Alberta started their alluvial mining operation based on a resource of 1.6 M bcm at 0.9 kg SnO2 /bcm. The Alberta Mines operation stopped following the tin price collapse in late 1985.
The northern portion of the EPM 17875 contains a part of the Alberta Mines mined area, both of the Kangaroo Creek and the sandridge, which was located along the northern extent of the creek.
A small scale miner, Max Eden, purchased the Alberta mines project and mined through 1987-88. The Eden syndicate mined the recent alluvium in the upper reaches of Kangaroo Creek through 1987-1988, and then mined into the Kangaroo Creek Sandridge. Eden produced 69.8 tonne of tin concentrate from a likely 75,000 cubic metres of treated wash. The Kangaroo Sandridge mining produced a high tin grade wash material (better than 1 kgSnO2/cubic metre). The Eden work was recorded in CRs 20691 and 22005. Through the late 1980s and early 1990s regional studies were undertaken by Nicron Resources and Renison Goldfields (RGC) in joint ventures with Eden. The RGC work was recorded by Davis (CRs 22493, 2355, 22860).
The sandridges carried concentrations of ilmenite, monazite, zircon and garnet, as well as the tin. These other minerals were discarded through the tin mining, either rejected at the primary jig plants, or rejected at the secondary upgrade plants through air tables or electrostatic and magnetic separation.
Within the tenement area, Alberta Mines explored for extensions of sandridge material by trenching and pan sampling of creek sediment.
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The regional exploration programs were completed on the sandridges to determine the potential for large volume targets. The initial exploration was undertaken to examine the reason for the tin mineralisation of the Fitzgerald syndicate operation. Creek systems draining broad long sand ridges were found to contain varying grades of alluvial tin mineralisation. The Kangaroo Creek recent alluvium and Sandridge was explored in detail by Alberta with over 300 shallow excavator pits dug and sampled. The company took up mining leases and mined the alluvium in Kangaroo Creek and the colluvium eroding from the Kangaroo Sandridge. Alberta also explored the regional creek systems, generally by direct creek sampling or shallow backhoe pitting and a number of alluvial targets were defined and mining leases taken up.
Eden purchased the Alberta mining leases and mined upstream from the Alberta mined areas, in the Kangaroo Creek system. Eden, on follow up to the Alberta sampling, suggested that the average 2 metre deep Alberta pit sampling was too shallow to test the tin mineralisation within the Sandridge. Eden was removing several metres of overburden before mining the tin rich layers. Eden entered into a JV with Nicron Resources and drill exploration was undertaken in the Kangaroo Sandridge. While the RC drill method was acknowledged as not a resource definition drill method, results highlighted a shape and the location of the best alluvial mineralisation which was the basal gravels in the Sandridge. The Eden exploration (CR20691) suggested the Kangaroo Sandridge contained about 30 M loose cubic metres of sand/gravel, with the basal 1-2 metres of the average 10 metre depth, containing the best grade of tin mineralisation (as well as monazite, zircon, garnet, ilmenite).
The Nicron JV lasted until October 1989 and a new JV was entered into with RGC Exploration (Renison) and this company undertook a detailed program of drilling of the Pinnacle Creek Sandridge, Renison also commented a smaller sandridge, the Boomerang Sandridge, where limited sampling had been completed through the Alberta/Eden exploration. The Renison sampling in these additional sandridges was by shallow digging of less than one metre.
Republic Gold Ltd (Republic), in 2008, undertook an aircore drill program of the section of Kangaroo Sandridge within mining leases MLs 5134 and 5115, these tenements not held, but adjacent to the CSD tenement. 116 holes of average depth of 8 metres were completed with 16 holes returning one or two metre intersections of greater than 400 ppm Sn. Of interest is the depth to mineralisation of 3-10 metres, supporting the comment of Eden in 1988 about the limited testing by Alberta in the 300 sample pits that were only 2 metre depth.
A desktop study completed by CSD tin geologists identified two exploration targets within the EPM. These are:
• Alluvial tin associated with the Kangaroo Creek sand ridge. The majority of historic tin production has come from the top section of the sand ridge and only limited exploration of the basal section of the sand ridge has occurred. The Kangaroo Creek sand ridge may well be largely underestimated by previous exploration efforts;
• Altered intrusives and adjacent metamorphic wall rock with associated quartz vein stockwork provide the host environment for Polymetallic (Copper/Molybdenite) and Tin mineralisation.
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If historic mining grades were consistent throughout the Kangaroo Creek sand ridge a quick envelope study provided an estimate of up to 4.5M cubic meters grading 1kgSnO2/bcm for 4,500t contained tin concentrate in Kangaroo creek.
Field work associated with a review of the alluvial tin potential of the Kangaroo Creek Sand ridge included:
Systematic heavy mineral sampling of the Kangaroo Creek sandridge using panning techniques;
Reconnaissance mapping of the extent of the Kangaroo Creek sandridge within the EPM;
This work culminated in CTM Alluvial Mining Pty Ltd pegging a mining lease over the Kangaroo Creek sandridge on both sides of Kangaroo Creek, a modern, active creek which has incised a channel through the sandridge.
4. Exploration Activities in Current Period
During the reporting period, CSD undertook a number of visits to the Lynd – Tate area to undertake further assessment of potential alluvial tin sandridge targets
Figure 4 shows the position of mapped sandridges, including the “Joey” sandridge within EPM17875.
Ongoing work during the 2016-17 reporting period will include:
Systematic heavy mineral sampling of Joey sandridge within EPM17875 using panning techniques;
Reconnaissance mapping of the Joey sandridges
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Figure 4: Regional sandridge targets
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5. REFERENCES Qld DME, 1998 1:250.000 Atherton Sheet SE 55-5, Second Edition
Company Reports Alberta Resources CRs 14020, 14587, 14588, 15747 Eden Syndicate CRs 20691, 22005 RGC Exploration CRs 22493, 2355, 22860
Explanatory Notes
Bain J, & Draper J 1997 North Queensland Geology AGSO Bulletin 240/Queensland Geology 9
Bultitude R.J. 1999 Cairns region, North Queensland Queensland Mining and Energy Review Series
Garrad, T.D. & Geology, Mining History and Mineralisation of the Hodgkinson and Kennedy Provinces
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