Overview

Mine Type	Underground
Status	Care and Maintenance
Commodities	Gold Silver
Mining Method	Uppers Retreat
Production Start	...
Mine Life	...
Snapshot	In October 2018, the Challenger Project was placed into care and maintenance by the then-operator WPG, who was under at that time under administration. The Project comprises the Mine, the Mill, a Mine village and associated infrastructure, which are maintained in a state of care and maintenance. The Challenger Mine was discovered in 1995 by Dominion Mining and produced ~1.2Moz Au in operations from 2002-2018. The Challenger Mill is a ~650ktpa CIP processing plant for production of gold doré. Due to the depth of the Challenger mine and requirement for substantial investment to renew the geological understanding of the deposit at depth, it is not a priority focus for the Company. However, the Challenger Mill presents an opportunity for processing regional mineralisation in the vicinity of the mill. It also provides an attractive option for trucking and processing of ore from the Company’s Tarcoola Project, which was previously undertaken during 2017 and 2018.

Deposit type

• Metamorphic hosted
• Vein / narrow vein

Summary:

The Challenger deposit occurs within the Mulgathing Complex of the Christie Subdomain in the north- western Gawler Craton, with the area characterised by Archaean to mid-Proterozoic high- grade metamorphic (granulite facies) gneissic basement.

Gold mineralisation at the Challenger Mine occurs in deformed quartz veins within narrow plunging lodes hosted by gneiss. The lodes represent the limbs and hinge zones of an isoclinal fold package around 500m wide containing multiple subparallel lodes in a deposit with intense structural control and a dominant 30-degree plunge to the north east.

The mineralised structures are interpreted to have a high level of continuity with individual shoots being mined and interpreted through drilling data for over 2,200m of plunge extent from surface (1,193 mRL). The deposit extends from surface to -147 mRL (~1.3km depth).

Challenger lodes include Challenger West (CW), Challenger South-Southwest (CSSW), Aminus, M1, M2, M3 and South East Zone (SEZ). The lodes are offset some 150m in plan by the 215 Shear at a depth of 900 – 1,000 metres, but continue to plunge at a similar orientation below the shear and all are open to depth. M1 and M2 have been mined on several levels below the 215 Shear. The deposit has been developed to ~1,130m depth (065 mRL).

High-grade gold mineralisation is associated with coarse-grained quartz veins with feldspar, cordierite, and sulphides within a hornblende orthoclase chlorite-sericite alteration assemblage. There are three main types of vein styles:

• Quartz dominant veins, which may be remnant pre-metamorphic mineralised veins;
• Polysilicate veins, which are dominant in the primary ore zones and host the majority of the mineralisation; and
• Late stage pegmatitic veins, which are unmineralized, with cross-cutting relationships.

Coarse visible gold of variable size and in association with sulphide mineralisation is a common feature of the higher-grade ore zones.

Mining Methods

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

Processing

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Production

Operational metrics

Metrics	2021	2017	2016	2015
Annual processing capacity	....
Ore tonnes mined	....	480,416 t	518 kt	509 kt
Tonnes processed	....	602,105 t	386 kt	515 kt

Personnel

Job Title	Name	Phone	Email	Profile	Ref. Date
.......................	.......................				Jan 5, 2024
.......................	.......................				Jan 8, 2024
.......................	.......................	...........	...........		Oct 25, 2023