Mountain View Prospect

The Mountain View prospect is located in the Dart Goldfield some 45 kilometres south of Corryong, to the west of the main Corryong to Benambra road, in north-eastern Victoria.  Extending over an area of 10 kilometres on a north-south trend, only the northern third of the known historic mine is within Darts EL4726, with the southern two thirds remaining part of the Victorian Alpine National Park.

The Dart Goldfield comprises a number of shallow mines from the 1890s where the gold is associated with sulphide rich lode structures. Historic records suggest that only some of the gold was recovered during the early mining period, due to limitations in technology at the time. The sulphide concentrates were also recognised as valuable, but generally not saved.

Dart’s exploration program seeks to define sufficient supergene enriched and sulphide gold lode targets within the Dart goldfield that could aggregate into a significant gold project.

The company’s first drill program at Mountain View was undertaken in mid 2007. Drilling identified high grade gold from surface, with the most significant intersect in hole MVD20 achieving 6m @21.79 g/t gold including 2m @ 59.25 g/t gold from 3 metres depth (see table 1 for latest results).

The results from exploration to date confirm the high-grade nature of the sulphide hosted gold mineralisation at Mountain View.

Since commencing exploration at the site, Dart has discovered further workings from the 1890s mining era, which extend the known strike a further 800 metres along what is believed to be a parallel line of lode. The system, shown capable of containing high grade gold and what was originally thought to be a single linear zone of interest structure, is now interpreted as capable of hosting multiple sub-parallel, vertically and laterally stacked sulphide lenses.

Dart plans to test these new targets with RC drilling in their 2008 programme.
 

Historic Production

The Mountain View prospect was discovered by Polmear in 1881 when 160 tonnes of oxidised ore was crushed for an average yield of 1 ounce per tonne. The mine was then purchased by the Dark River Company which erected a roasting furnace and chlorination plant in 1884. Over the ensuing years the lode was worked intermittentently by open pit, adits and shafts to a depth of 32 metres. Historically recorded production at Mountain View was 1,365 ounces (42.5 kg) of gold from 954 tonnes of ore during the period 1883-1888.

In 1994 Mountain View Resources Ltd (a company then associated with current Director Bernhard Hochwimmer) undertook a small test pit operation that yielded some 250 ounces of gold from approximately 1,100 tonnes of mixed oxide and sulphide ore. 

Figure 1a

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Table 1 - Mountain View drill results

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last updated June 2008