Fosterville Gold Mine

The Fosterville Gold mine is located 20 km east of Bendigo, a township of approximately 95,000 people. Bendigo, a historic gold mining centre located 150 km north of Melbourne, is estimated to have produced 22 million ounces of gold following the first discoveries in 1851. Fosterville is the largest producing gold mine in the state of Victoria.

In 2011, Fosterville produced its half-millionth ounce of gold and has achieved back-to-back quarterly production records (Q2 and Q3). The mine is on track to produce 100,000 ounces of gold in 2011.

Australian Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism: Federal Energy Efficiency Opportunities (EEO) Public Report for Fosterville Gold Mine

Geology

The Fosterville Goldfield is located in the Bendigo Zone of the Lachlan Fold Belt. The host rock lithologies in this zone are dominated by a sequence of folded and faulted Ordovician turbidites, which were subsequently deformed in the Late Ordovician (450-430 Ma) Benambran Orogeny.

The Fosterville Goldfield is hosted by a turbiditic sequence of interbedded sandstones, siltstones and shales interpreted as having formed through a regime of meandering submarine channels. The sequence is dominated by shale topped sands ranging from 0.2 to 1.5 metres thick, with lesser amounts of massive sandstone, shale and black shale.

Mineralization

Mineralization at Fosterville is controlled by a series of late brittle faults, which are often bedding parallel and follow pre-existing laminated quartz veins. However, there are also examples that crosscut bedding to link bedding parallel faults across folds.

These late brittle faults are generally steeply west dipping reverse faults with a series of moderately dipping reverse splay faults formed in the footwall of the main fault. The splay faults are generally confined to a zone within 100 metres east of the main fault. In the current mining areas the main fault is the Fosterville Fault with the Phoenix Fault being the most important splay fault in terms of identified mineralization.

Exploration

For 2011, we are carrying out a $3.8 million exploration budget (approximately 18,000 m), focusing on resource conversion, infill drilling primarily within the Phoenix orebody and investigative drilling outside of the known resource area.