Name: Kanowna Belle mine.
Location: The Kanowna Belle mine site is situated in the Eastern Goldfields province of Western Australia.
Mine Owner/s: Northern Star Resources.
Brief History: Gold was first discovered in the Kanowna area in 1893 by Irish prospector Jerry McAuliffe. Nearly one-million ounces of gold were produced in the ensuing gold rush, which lasted until the onset of the World War One. Despite several episodes of modern exploration throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Kanowna Belle deposit was not discovered until late 1989 by Delta Gold. Openpit mining started in 1993, with full underground production achieved in 1998.
Brief Description: Kanowna Belle is an underground mine, which forms part of Northern Star’s Kalgoorlie Operations. The Kanowna tenement package surrounding the Kanowna Belle mine and processing plant comprises 35 mining leases, 41 prospecting leases and seven exploration leases, totalling 226 km2 of tenure.
Primary Metals: Gold.
Secondary Metals: None stated.
Geology/Mineralisation: Kanowna Belle is located in the Kalgoorlie Terrane (Boorara subdomain) of the Eastern Goldfields province. Stratigraphically, the deposit is situated in the Black Flag Group, which overlies the lower volcanic sequences.
Mineralisation is mainly hosted within a large porphyritic granodiorite body (Kanowna Belle porphyry) that has intruded a sequence of sedimentary and volcaniclastic rocks. A zone of intense structural disruption (Fitzroy shear zone) separates the deposit into hanging wall and footwall structural domains, and is the primary control on gold distribution. Gold mineralisation is locally associated with quartz-carbonate stockwork veins, breccia zones, sulphide-quartz-carbonate stringers and sheeted vein arrays. The generally tabular enveloping surface to mineralisation dips steeply to the south, has a high plunge to strike ratio and remains open at depth.
Reserves: Total proven and probable reserves as at June 30, 2018, were estimated at 7.51-million tonnes grading2.8 g/t gold.
Resources: Total mineral resources as at June 30, 2018, were estimated at 24.58-million grading 2.3 g/t gold.
Mining Method: The mining is a form of modified open stoping, which is sequenced and driven on a stope-by-stope basis by geotechnical considerations. The open stopes are back-filled with paste using tailings from the Kanowna Belle mill.
Major Infrastructure and Equipment: The Kanowna Belle processing facilities are designed to handle about two-million tonnes of feed a year. The plant has the capability to treat refractory and free milling ores through eitherflotation circuit and associated concentrate roaster circuit, including carbon-in-leach (CIL) gold recovery or through the CIL circuit that is designed to treat flotation tails, bypassing the flotation circuit.
The mine includes a mining fleet comprising development and production drills, loaders, dump trucks and articulated dump trucks.
Kanowna also maintains two active tailings storage facilities.
Prospects: Underground diamond drilling is continuing at Kanowna Belle, with four underground rigs operating in the mine on resource extension and exploration programmes.
Contact Details:
Northern Star Resources
Tel +61 8 6188 2100
Fax +61 8 6188 2111
Email info@nsrltd.com
Website https://www.nsrltd.com