Sixth Annual Report ML 29494 from 21 December 2017 to 20 December 2018

Abstract

The 2018 mining season (Trip 1) commenced by cutting a face in the Adit Drive for the purpose of mineral specimen collection and development of flanking support columns prior to face. There were 9 'cuts' of ~ 0.5 metres totalling 5 metres made into the Adit Drive and some quality azurite specimen material, some with malachite, was collected. A 0.5 metre cut was made in to the DDD. Overall, approximately 30 cubic metres of waste rock was mined from the drives. Most of this rock was placed by wheel barrow on the western side of the WRD and some went as fill into erosion spaces in the steep WRD access track. Azurite pigment material was collected in 2018 as in previous 4 years. Prior to 2014 much of the low quality and broken azurite pieces went to waste rock or to storage in the mine. This material is extracted and washed to remove clay for sale into the azurite pigment market. Production was 300kg in 2014 due to backlog material going nowhere and in 2015 was down to ~130Kg due to L1 and L2 depletion in the UDD. Production in 2017 was 270 kg due to the increase in volume of low quality azurite in the Adit Drive face. Production in 2018 was 200kg. The pigment is used to restore old art works that used azurite as the blue base in medieval art works and Egyptian art works. It is also used by modern artists who work only in naturally derived paints. The sales of the azurite pigment material has helped mine economics. The mine is not worth working purely for the pigment material but it forms a useful by product.