The Mt Garnet base metal mineralisation occurs in a garnet-pyroxene-amphibole skarn-altered, northerly-trending, fossiliferous limestone and limey siltstone unit that hosts sphalerite-rich mineralisation. The skarn zone dips sub-vertically, is typically 30 metres to 60 metres wide, and extends beyond 550 metres below surface, which is the current limit of drill investigations.

High-grade massive and semi-massive sphalerite-rich mineralisation (notionally >10% Zn) is largely confined to two distinct, sub-parallel, shallow to moderately north-plunging “shoots”, termed the South Shoot and the North Shoot.

Mining operations recommenced at the Mount Garnet mine in July 2017, with the mining of remnant ore from the existing Mount Garnet underground mine in parallel with new development to the newly discovered Mount Garnet Deeps deposit located 70m south of the Mount Garnet mine. The Company commenced decline development from existing workings at the Mount Garnet underground mine to access the Mount Garnet Deeps deposit. The first extraction of ore from the Mount Garnet Deeps deposit commenced in December 2018. [06/30/2018 Annual Report, p. 4]

Current mining activity is occurring at both the Mt Garnet Mine and the Dry River South (DRS) Mine at the Surveyor Project.

Development of the new Mt Garnet Deeps decline continued during the last quarter of FY2019 in parallel with ore drive development. Ore from the old Mt Garnet Mine continued with small quantities of remnant ore from the upper levels.

Increasing quantities of development ore will continue to be mined from the Mt Garnet Deeps deposit with stope production commenced in the first quarter of FY2020.

Extraction of Mt Garnet Deeps underground employs Longhole Open Stoping as the mining method with 20 m to 25 m level spacing. Development is achieved using CSD owned Atlas Copco M2D twin boom Jumbos. Longhole production drilling is achieved using CSD owned Sandvik DL432i Production Drill. Teleremote loading in stope is done by CSD CAT R1700 and R2900 loaders and ore is hauled to surface using CSD CAT AD55 articulated dump trucks.

Mount Garnet Processing Plant currently processing ore from the Mt Garnet UG Mine and Dry River South UG Mine at a combined rate of approximately 500ktpa. [02/11/2020 Corporate Presentation, p. 18]

The Mount Garnet Processing Plan has an annual processing capacity of 1,000,000 tonnes of ore, comprising two individual circuits with shared infrastructure. One supergene copper circuit and one polymetallic circuit, with each circuit having a capacity of 500ktpa. Only the polymetallic circuit is in operation at this time with the supergene copper circuit held on care and maintenance. [Sept 2019 Notice of Annual General Meetings, p. 20]

Operation
A front-end loader (FEL) feeds ore from the ROM pad into a jaw crusher at a rate of approximately 200 t/h where it is crushed to less than 100 mm and then stockpiled on the Fine Ore Stockpile (FOS) via conveyor system. This material is then fed to the milling circuit via three feeders and a conveyor for further size reduct ........