EL 514, Cosmopolitan Howley Final report.

Abstract

Cosmopolitan-Howley is a gold mining centre in the Northern Territory situated south south-east of Darwin. It was worked extensively by shallow open cut and stoping methods between 1803-1904 for a production of 1 million grams from 50,000 tonnes of ore. This mining plus the prospecting and exploration work of a number of companies and government departments in the intervening period suggested that potential existed for a viable open cut and/or underground mine. The 1975/76 Dampier Mining Company Limited program of mapping, channel sampling and shallow percussion drilling on the nose of the steeply plunging anticline in which the mineralisation occurs did not prove the tonnage/grade combination to meet the Company?s minimum requirements for an open-cut gold mine. Two vertical diamond holes were drilled to test the down plunge extensions of the ore zone. These holes, 70 and 110 metres west of the surface workings, both intersected numerous gold bearing horizons.