Buckland (EL4724)

Located about 200 kilometres from Melbourne in north-eastern Victoria, the Buckland Valley goldfield is contained entirely within Darts EL 4724. Fairley’s prospect is a “rediscovery” which Dart considers of exploration significance. The prospect is situated at 800 metres elevation on a ridge above Fairley’s Creek, a tributary of the Buckland River and its extensive historic alluvial gold workings.

Alluvial gold production from the Buckland goldfield was continuous from 1853 to abut 1919 with a second period of production in the late 1930s that included large hydraulic and bucket dredge operations. However, the source of the alluvial production remains unexplained as the reported hard rock orogenic-style deposits were small and insufficient to explain the source of such consistent alluvial gold production. Dart geologists’ historical review resulted in rediscovery of Fairley’s Gold Prospect.

Although lost in modern accounts of the goldfield, newspaper reports in the 1890s considered the Fairley’s Creek mine as one of the most significant hard rock deposits found in the field. The mine exhibited unusual mineralogy compared to the smaller surrounding orogenic lodes, in which the gold was traditionally free milling. Despite contemporary reports of very high grades, the low yields realised suggests to Dart that substantial gold was contained in sulphides and not able to be recovered onsite with the technology of the time.

In addition, company geologists have recently rediscovered the historic Kaufmann and Centennial mines.

A soil geochemistry grid has been established at the Fairley’s prospect which is currently being extended to the south and east to follow up identified open soil gold anomalies. Initial rock chips and soil sampling programs over several prospects indicate that there are significant mineralised systems which warrant further exploration and drilling at the prospect.

The results show consistently that mineralisation identified in historical reports as “large” or of “stockwork nature” exhibit broad surface gold anomalism on a 310 degree mineralisation trend.

These new prospects will be taken through to the design of a drill program and a Work Plan submitted to the DPI for approval.

Dart has already constructed new access roads into the Fairley’s prospect to allow exploration drilling to be undertaken.

Initial rock chip sampling from Fairley's

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Significant RC Drilling Assay results

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last updated June 2008