7am
6.8 degrees in van and 2.2 degrees outside but it is lovely and sunny. Packed up and headed towards Heathcote after
smoko.
Passed
a big mine that looks like coal at Costerfield.
Into
Argyle where we turned off into the Spring Plains State Forest and found a nice
area to park the van. Steve found a bit of gold when we drove in here recently
for a look. Hope there is more!!
Enjoyed
the sunshine and peace and quiet while I read my book. Steve went detecting
then I went for a walk to find him. I followed the water race around the base
of the hills till I got to where we had detected before. Back along the road to
where we had camped and Steve was already back – emptyhanded though.
Had
lunch in the sunshine and got the fireplace ready. He went off for another
detect – I admire his determination. I worked on the blog etc. I googled the
Augusta Mine that we passed near Costerfield. It is owned by Mandalay and it is
a gold-antimony mine. It looked like coal to us. The largest applications for metallic
antimony are as alloying material for lead and tin and for lead antimony plates
in lead-acid batteries. Alloying lead and tin with antimony improves the
properites of the alloys which are used in solders, bullets and plain bearings.
Antimony compounds are prominent additives for chlorine and bromine-containing
fire retardants found in many commercial and domestic products. Learnt something
new.
They
purchased it in end of 2009 from Western Coal. The veins they are mining were
discovered in the 1860s by two prospectors named Coster and Field and together
with further veins discovered in the mineral district were mined for both gold
and antimony, most extensively during two periods: 1860 – 1883 and 1904 – 1925.
The Costerfield district has undergone more extensive, modern exploration which
met with early success with the discovery of the Augusta deposit in 1975. The
construction of a processing plant in 1995 by AGD enabled the re-treatment of
tailings and the oxide portion of the Brunswick deposit which was mined by open
pit method. The Augusta underground mine started in 2006. Mandalay commenced
extensional drilling of the Augusta deposit and a brownfields program was
initiated in 2010 which met with early success. A new discovery called Cuffley
is located deeper under the old Allison mine. Exploration began with one rig,
growing the program to three diamond drill rigs through the year to end of
2011. Drilling has continued ever since with three to four rigs. Costerfield
currently produces ore from a single underground mine exploiting the steeply
dipping Augusta E, W and N lodes at the south end of the main Costerfield zone.
Ore is accessed by a spiral 4 x 4 decline grading 1 in 7 from the surface.
No
gold again but he is getting lots of exercise. We are weighing each week and so
far have been losing weight since we bought the scales!! Cleared a spot and
made a fireplace out of an old cut off 44 gallon drum. Lots of firewood to use
around here.
Jon
rang to tell Steve about the new starter
for the boat. Tash is well too. So looking forward to seeing them soon.
Malcolm
rang about next weekend. Kerry had texted me a photo of the snow in their
backyard. Amazing. Malcolm said they hadn’t had snow like that since 1986.
At
10pm it was 8.2 degrees outside so a much warmer night.
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