Luipaarsdvlei Lease
The Luipaardsvlei Lease is located approx 27km west of Johannesburg CBD and is adjacent to the east of the East Champ D'Or Lease and to the west with the West Rand Consolidated Lease.
Princess Target
The Princess Target was a section of Kimberley Reef located on the Luipaardsvlei lease, which was the continuation of the section Kimberley Reef known as the Emerald Target located on the Company's adjacent West Rand Consolidated Lease. The Princess Target is approximately 2.2km in strike length.
The Princess Target is now included within the Emerald Resource, for full details on the Emerald Resource please click here.
From two drill programs the Company was able to achieve a 20,000 ounce gold resource. Within this resource, 18,000 ounces at an average grade of 1.4g/t has been reported in the JORC Inferred category, with 2,000 ounces at an average grade of 1.50 g/t reported as Indicated.
The initial program completed was a 2,306m RC and diamond program completed on 200m section lines. The program confirmed near surface high grade mineralisation, that warranted an immediate follow up Phase 2 program to further test the continuity of the mineralisation. The Phase 2 drilling program, was a 525m RC program, completed in November.
All assay results were received and released in December 2008, the results returned numerous high grade intercepts across several zones of the Princess Target.
Click here for Emerald - Princess Target Significant Intersections
Click to enlarge
As this small Resource lies contiguous to the Emerald Gold Project, where approximately a 59,000 ounce JORC Gold Reserve has been reported, the exploration team decided to assess its economic prospectivity as part the bigger Emerald Gold Project on the adjacent West Rand Consolidated Lease.
A conceptual target announced in July 2008 identified a possible 32,000 - 38,000 ounces of gold for a combined Emerald and Princess Target resource.
The Company believes there is further exploration potential at the Princess Target at depth.
Turk Target
The Turk Target is located on the Luipaardsvlei Lease over an approx 2km section of the Ventersdorp Contact Reef (VCR). The VCR reef is the youngest mineralised reef horizon in the West Rand stratigraphy and occurs on the boundary of the West Rand Group and the extrusive Ventersdorp lava. The Turk Target was identified, as part of the Company's historical data review, as a highly prospective exploration target to be tested for possible economic near-surface mineralisation.
The initial Turk drilling program achieved 2,047m in RC and diamond drilling. The program was completed on 200m section spacing's across a strike of approximately 2kms to a maximum vertical depth of 80m. All Phase 1 assay results were received and released in December 2008. The results highlighted 2 distinct areas of high grade near surface gold mineralisation.
Click here for complete assay results
Click to enlarge
Historical ownership and mining activities on the Luipaarsdvlei Lease
The Luipaardsvlei Gold Mine Company was formed in London on 5th May 1888 for GBP250,000, which Gold Fields of South Africa Limited received shares in the company as vendor consideration.
In 1927, the General Manager of the mine engaged a man to prospect a number of claims owned by the mine. A series of ancient trenches, old winzes and stopes bore testimony to previous operations undertaken in the very early days of exploration (pre Boer War). During this period, the Main and South Reefs were being extensively mined.
Work continued predominantly on the Main and South Reef for the next 20 years. However, by 1956, the Company's annual report showed that the Company's shares had significantly depreciated. Two factors were responsible; a reduced milling capacity (down to 8,600 tonnes) from the Main Reef to create milling capacity for Bird Reef production. Difficulties also arose from disappointing downward extensions to the workings where severe faulting continued to retard the development of new ore reserves in the southwest portion of the mine. By 1958, reports show that the operations in the gold section were encountering increased difficulties, though those in the uranium section were expanding.
In the next 12 years, uranium took over as the primary source of income, but on 31st March 1970 the last blast occurred on the Luipaardsvlei lease.
Historical Production
