Individual mining operations, including mining at Fifteen Mile Stream, have focussed on quartz-vein hosted gold deposits within the Goldenville Formation, typically associated with the limbs and hinges of anticlines. This setting is often referred to as ‘Meguma style’ gold mineralization and a number of workers have drawn parallels with a similar style of gold mineralization in the Victorian Goldfields of eastern Australia (e.g. Christie et al, 1999) .

At Fifteen Mile Stream, the highest gold grades are typically associated with beddingparallel tabular quartz veins. However, the host rock material between quartz veins also carries significant gold grades. It is the quartz vein hosted gold mineralization augmented by disseminated style mineralization that forms the basis of a geological model associated with the ongoing exploration and development of the Fifteen Mile Stream gold deposit.

Mineralization at Fifteen Mile Stream is focused in the hinge of a regional anticline and generally conforms to a saddle-reef style model where veins and related alteration occur in bedding-parallel structures resulting from folding. Fold related strain is focused within the softer meta-mudstone units thus mineralization is generally controlled by stratigraphy, with bedding-parallel quartz veins and related alteration mainly confined to meta-mudstone intervals. True saddle-reef quartz veins do not occur within any of the mineralized zones. However a thick bedding-paralle ........

Mining is based on conventional open pit methods suited for the project location and local site requirements. The mining fleet will include diesel powered down the hole (DTH) drills with 144 mm bit size for production drilling, diesel-powered RC drills for bench- scale grade control drilling, 5 m3 bucket size diesel hydraulic excavators and 7 m3 bucket sized wheel loaders for production loading, and 64 t payload rigid-frame haul trucks and 41 t articulated trucks for production hauling, plus ancillary and service equipment to support the mining operations. In-pit dewatering systems will be established for each pit. All surface water and precipitation in the pits will be handled by submersible pumps.

Two independent stand-alone open pit operations at Fifteen Mile Stream and Cochrane Hill will run concurrently with the Touquoy and Beaver Dam operations. At Fifteen Mile Stream, ore will be hauled to a crusher that will be located 1,500 m southeast of the pit, which will feed the process plant. Waste rock will be split into potentially acid-generating (PAG) and non-potentially acid generating (NPAG) material and deposited into WRSFs to be situated 700 m south of the pit or will be used as rock fill in construction of the TMF to be located 1,700 m east of the pit.

At Fifteen Mile Stream, the Egerton–MacLean pit is split into south and north phases with the higher-grade and lower strip ratio south phase mined ahead of the north phase. The Hudson and Plenty pi ........

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A process facility with a nominal treatment rate of 2.0 Mt/a has been designed to recover and concentrate gold from ore mined at the proposed Fifteen Mile Stream open pit. The plant operates two shifts per day, 365 d/a at an overall plant availability of 92%. The process plant will produce a gold concentrate to be transported and further treated at the Touquoy process plant.

The process plant will consist of the following unit operations:

• Crushing:
- Primary crushing by jaw crusher;
- Secondary crushing by cone crusher;
- Tertiary crushing by cone crusher;
- Associated conveying, screening and dust suppression systems;

• Grinding and flotation:
- Grinding by ball mill with a primary cyclone;
- Gravity concentrator for recovery of GRG;
- Flotation by conventional flotation;
- Cleaner flotation;

• Dewatering and concentrate handling:
- Concentrate dewatering and load out;
- Tailings disposal t ........