Why is so much gold remaining in the Victorian Deep Leads?
The upper tributaries and shallow Victorian Deep Leads were mined extensively in the late 1800’s when 6.5 million ounces of gold was reported as mined. The Deep Leads have been extensively drilled and various sources estimate the gold in ground to be in the region of 20 to 80 million ounces. The gold sits in a strata of between 0.5 – 3m width but at a depth of up to 100 metres. Traditional open cut and dredging would not be economically viable due to the overburden ratio. Dewatering and shaft mining is dangerous, uneconomic and environmentally undesirable. Freezing and shaft mining is also economically untenable. Solution mining of the gold bearing strata using cyanide or other chemicals is environmentally unacceptable and economically and practically unproven. Therefore, the gold remains in the ground until an economic and environmentally acceptable way can be found to extract it, such as SORDMiner.
