Annual Report 2016 to 2017 ML 25205 SunJade Project

Abstract

The Mine Site is the SunJade Project, ML 25205, located approximately 500 Kms from Katherine and about 25 Kms by road south of the township of Kalkarindji. The ML is accessed from the Buchanan Hwy, via Lajamanu Road and a narrow station track which leads to the ML. There are no other mines in the area. Linna Huang surrendered EL 28125 covering an area of 190 Sq. kms around the ML and decided not to pursue other Mineral Leases in the area to allow more area to be available to fossickers. This will allow us to concentrate on ML 25205. ML 25205 is in the Wave Hill map area. A field trip was made to the area in September, 2016, to look into the viability of fluorescent materials present on the ML. Several examples of calcite were collected which fluoresced yellow, orange and red. Although there were several enquiries for rough prehnite there were no sales of prehnite in the past 12 months, possibly due to the downturn in the Chinese economy. We are hoping this will change after Chinese New Year 2017. Gemstones of Australia Pty. Ltd. has installed a large tumbler for cleaning the prehnite. Yields have been much lower than expected. A smaller mesh was used for screening on site to screen material directly into bulka bags. This was done to save time but has proved to be totally inefficient because too much soil (rain two weeks prior to mining had caused the soil to clump together) was getting into the bags. This is typical of the content of the bags and prehnite yield is very low. The area we mined during the last period (2015 - 2016) was in an area that had previously been ripped by a grader to create 'A FIRE BREAK'. Club Members/Fossickers had collected several tonnes of material form this area. Our main concern at the moment is the downturn in the Chinese market. We need to open a market for the lower grades of carving materials. We are considering exporting polished prehnite nodules and slices to China and exhibit and some of the gem and jewellery shows. This is the way we created interest in the material in 2008. The large tumbling machine (See Fig 4.) can turn out about 600 Kgs of tumbled stone every 4 - 5 days. The stones are then finished in small vibrating tumblers. We etched away calcite from a quartz geode and discovered an unusual crystal formation, believed to be quartz, but we may need to have the specimen tested. We are not planning to mine during the next (2017 - 2018) period unless the situation changes in China.