NEW MINE STARTING

[drystone]

Hi Rios, great photos mate!
It certainly looks like you're onto the reef there: interesting geometry and red colouration ("alteration"). Is it haematite or clays?
Did you hit the vein in your drive early or about where you expected?
What is known about the gold distribution in the reef (ie from other workings nearby) disseminated through, or in bands with sulphide or along the margins etc?
An exciting time for you in the hot seat and for us watching from afar!
fingers crossed for you and your crew,
cheers
Drystone

 

[rios]

Hi Rios, great photos mate!
It certainly looks like you're onto the reef there: interesting geometry and red colouration ("alteration"). Is it haematite or clays?
Did you hit the vein in your drive early or about where you expected?
What is known about the gold distribution in the reef (ie from other workings nearby) disseminated through, or in bands with sulphide or along the margins etc?
An exciting time for you in the hot seat and for us watching from afar!
fingers crossed for you and your crew,
cheers
Drystone

At 35m we drove into the reef, sampled it and thought it was not rich enough and continued digging downwards. We had driven horizontally 3m. We then drove a further meter or so to build a sump basin as when we got into the reef water started flowing out. So the guys are digging vertically going down now. Reef at 35m was 3 meters from our shaft. The blast for our sump exposed the reef further and I decided to take it for fire assay.

The results were 143.2 grams per ton which was quite surprising considering when we had initially gotten into it, we thought it was useless.

We have since decided to continue with our downward push then we will drive into the reef again at 50m or so. Our confidence levels are now so high that we are literally shaking with excitement. we know the reef is there and we know chances are higher it will have good grades of gold.

We had expected to intercept the vein at 40m but the vertical shaft has not done so. It looks like we are now parallel to it as it is probably now vertically steeping.

The gold is in quartz veins, I would say in bands with sulphide and sometimes along the margins. There is a lot of pyrite in the quartz also. The quartz veins are hosted in very hard bluestone. We have breaking our drill steels and bits like every time.

And we had a visitor yesterday and we chase him/her away.

 

[jethro]

143grams to the ton you,d have to be happy with that. Why not take out a 10 ton bulk sample and send it away for processing to see if it is free milling ore or complex refractory ore that will need a lot of proceeses to recover the majority of the gold. :Y: But great work anyway and dont forget to give your crew a bonus.
BTW what sort of snake was it ?

 

[rios]

143grams to the ton you,d have to be happy with that. Why not take out a 10 ton bulk sample and send it away for processing to see if it is free milling ore or complex refractory ore that will need a lot of proceeses to recover the majority of the gold. :Y: But great work anyway and dont forget to give your crew a bonus.
BTW what sort of snake was it ?

We will take ore out for milling very soon, my projection is by end of this week barring mishaps. I say so because we are two blasts away from finishing up the sump basin for the water at 50m. The basin will be 3m or so deep then we will built a platform above it. From the platform our drive, which is now already 1.5m, will advance towards and into the reef.

The nature of the ore in the area is such that we will be able to easily liberate around 40% of the gold. With time it makes sense to establish our own processing plant because as things stand., the stamp mill owner gets more gold than us.

Bonus for the crew will be needless hey considering the nature of the arrangement we have with them. They get paid a %age of the profits. So they are pretty well covered and motivated. So of them havent seen their families for a span now but hopefully they will be rewarded for their sacrifice.

The snake was a puff adder. It preys on rats and mice.

 

[jethro]

Good job Rios looking forward to seeing the first bar of dore gold. Only 40% free milling hey. The mill owner must be doing very nicely. Do you have to pay a fee per tonne or does he just keep the battery sands for payment?

 

[rios]

Good job Rios looking forward to seeing the first bar of dore gold. Only 40% free milling hey. The mill owner must be doing very nicely. Do you have to pay a fee per tonne or does he just keep the battery sands for payment?

Free for reef per ton charge for rubble

 

[jethro]

I think that you need to put in your own plant as soon as you can so that you can stockpile your sands for latter treatment or sale to the highest bidder.

What sort of recovery system is in use at the mill currently? Does the mill use mercury on copper plates after crushing or gravity seperation if the gold is coarse enough, Is cyanide used or even froth floatation to separate the sulphides.

 

[rios]

I think that you need to put in your own plant as soon as you can so that you can stockpile your sands for latter treatment or sale to the highest bidder.

What sort of recovery system is in use at the mill currently? Does the mill use mercury on copper plates after crushing or gravity seperation if the gold is coarse enough, Is cyanide used or even froth floatation to separate the sulphides.

I agree with you. Own mill makes sands when funds are available.

At the mill we crush then use a james table then gravity separator. The miller then uses cynide in tanks for their gold recoveries before using carbon in pulp.

Copperplates not used coz the ore has antimony. So i am told

 

[ballarat_gold]

Nice work rios. Cheers for updating your progress on here. It's a great journey to follow.

 

[Nuggetnoob]

did you want an investor hahaha

 

[HeadsUp]

On explosives, ANFO is ammonium nitrate and diesel, not knowing the name of this basic formula worries me.
Also I am unsure they make "Dynamite" as such any more?? There are more modern charges available such as power gel and the likes.
I can get drilling done with a rotary air blast (Percussion) rig here for $120 per hole to 18 meters (all that I usually need in my situation) so lets say 54 meters would cost around $360, lets say $400 per hole to 60 meters that equates to about 12.5 holes for $5000.
The air percussion rig uses compressed air to drive the rock fragments to the surface through the drill core, samples only take about 3 sec at 18 meters to reach the screen and can be bagged and logged then. If you are not familiar with it you should look into it. It's far cheaper. You can buy a good second hand righter for under 100K

The other thing is, why look for investors here? Are there no investors in Zimbabwe?

If I had $20k spare I would be spending it where I could see what it was being used for first hand.
Plenty of investment opportunities here guys.

I hope ywou achieve you objective if it's genuine.
I agree whole heartedly with SWright

There has been so many drillers go bust here in the last 2 years you can pick up a RAB drill for 10 -20 grand at auction . If it's located in a remote mining town you can barely give them away.

 

[rios]

did you want an investor hahaha

What for?

 

[rios]

I think that you need to put in your own plant as soon as you can so that you can stockpile your sands for latter treatment or sale to the highest bidder.

What sort of recovery system is in use at the mill currently? Does the mill use mercury on copper plates after crushing or gravity seperation if the gold is coarse enough, Is cyanide used or even froth floatation to separate the sulphides.

Its a stamp mill with a separator and james table before separator. We then use mercury. The miller then does whatever with the sands.

Yah am putting plans in motion to set up a mill to also custom mill. There is free money there. Setting up is a process.

 

[jethro]

Hey there Rios good to hear from you again. How is the progress on the mine going? Have you got a trial crushing out yet?

 

[Zengeo]

You're going great Rios!
If you're looking to set up your own processing plant, have you checked out these guys?
APT Processing
They're SA based and probably have the right kind of kit you'd need

 

[rios]

You're going great Rios!
If you're looking to set up your own processing plant, have you checked out these guys?
APT Processing
They're SA based and probably have the right kind of kit you'd need

Its timbered up now, the shaft. We did it just before the rains started, and they have started. Access to the mine when it rains is limited. But we are still working.


Even though our shaft is now 53m deep vertically we are working on the tunnel at 35m. The grades have been around 25g per 7 ton load at a stamp mill.

The mineralization is structurally controlled there is more gold the deeper one goes. Its just that at 35m there is no water, that is why for now we are working at that level.

 

[aussiefarmer]

:Y:

 

[Hunting the yellow]

You're going great Rios!
If you're looking to set up your own processing plant, have you checked out these guys?
APT Processing
They're SA based and probably have the right kind of kit you'd need

Its timbered up now, the shaft. We did it just before the rains started, and they have started. Access to the mine when it rains is limited. But we are still working.


Even though our shaft is now 53m deep vertically we are working on the tunnel at 35m. The grades have been around 25g per 7 ton load at a stamp mill.

The mineralization is structurally controlled there is more gold the deeper one goes. Its just that at 35m there is no water, that is why for now we are working at that level.

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/9558/1510653630_load.jpg
https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/9558/1510653727_ore_2.jpg
https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/9558/1510653728_ore.jpg
https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/9558/1510653729_oxidized_ore.jpg
https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/9558/1510653730_reef.jpg

very nice looking ore there have you came across any shoots of gold yet ? or rich stringers/leaders ?

 

[jethro]

Hey Rios. anything to update us on in the mine? :Y:

 

[1968falconxt]

Wow, what an interesting thread. I am very interested to see an update from the last 3 months work?