Solomon Hub Deposits – Firetail, Kings and Queens. The Solomon Project area is situated approximately 60km to the north of the Tom Price township in the northern Hamersley ranges. Outcropping geology in the project area is dominated by the Dales Gorge, Whaleback Shale and Joffre Members of the Brockman Iron Formation which hosts large bedded iron deposits (BID) throughout the Hamersley Province. The Firetail deposit comprises the majority of BID tonnes at Solomon, where geologically favourable environments have allowed for the formation and preservation of large tonnages of bedded iron mineralisation.

Incised into the bedrock geology are regional palaeochannel systems, predominantly one to two kilometres in width, and stretching for tens of kilometres. During the Miocene period, deep chemical weathering and erosion of iron rich material into these fluvial channels has formed channel iron deposits (CID). The CID is subdivided into an upper ‘hard CID’ and a lower ‘ochreous CID’, there is also a semi-continuous middle CID layer which is difficult to detect with RC drilling. Clay lenses within the CID are observed as semi-discrete bands, often several meters thick. The clay lenses are somewhat discontinuous and of a poddy nature although often traceable between drill holes. CID of approximately 40km strike length is preserved in the Kings CID system, with an additional 25km of CID located in the Serenity deposit to the west. Other CID occurrences are also known through ........

The Solomon Hub in the Hamersley Ranges comprises the Firetail, Kings Valley and Queens Valley mines. The expansion to Queens Valley has enabled continued production of the Kings Fines product. Production from Queens Valley at the Solomon Hub continued, supported by the commissioning of the overland conveyor in the first half of FY22. Fortescue’s standalone product produced from Channel Iron Deposit Ore from its Kings mine in the Solomon Hub, with an iron content of 57.3% Fe.

Mining will continue to employ conventional open pit methods of drill and blast followed by load and haul, similar to the methods employed at other open cut mines in the Pilbara. Material will be drilled and blasted on nominally 5 m or 12 m benches2 for ore and waste, and then mined by hydraulic backhoe configured excavators, taking into account blast induced swell, into haul trucks.

Existing waste dumps will be used until pit voids are available for backfilling.

It has been assumed that current mining methods will continue to be used in the future, the block size in the models is appropriate for this.

Crushing will involve combinations of primary, secondary and tertiary crushing.

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