ECR Minerals (ECR ) has identified a new gold-bearing quartz reef at the Maddens mine on the Maddens gold project in North Queensland.
The newly recognised reef, named "Jack's Reef", was encountered during underground development work associated with ventilation infrastructure at the Maddens mine.
Jack's Reef is a consistent quartz structure, approximately 50 centimetres or more in width in places, with clearly visible gold observed within it.
The position of Jack's Reef may explain why mineralisation appears to terminate at the northern end of the mine and could indicate a continuation or change in orientation of the existing Maddens mine mineralised system due to structural controls.
The discovery potentially opens up additional ground around the existing mine and towards the known Maddens Northern Lode for targeted exploration.
The existing mine infrastructure allows ECR to investigate Jack's Reef from active underground workings rather than relying solely on surface exploration.
There is now potential to demonstrate that gold-bearing structures continue beyond areas previously thought to represent the limits of historic development.
The wider Maddens project tenements contain a number of historic mines and workings, and until now, there has been limited modern, systematic exploration to understand how these structures may be connected.
The identification of Jack's Reef therefore provides a potentially important new piece of the geological model and may help ECR build a clearer picture of the scale and continuity of the broader mineralised system.
"Jack's Reef is very encouraging and adds another dimension to the opportunity at the Maddens project,” said ECR chairman Nick Tulloch.
"The presence of visible gold is clearly exciting, but just as importantly, the location and substantial nature of the reef may help us better understand how the mineralised system continues beyond the historic workings. This is exactly the type of finding we hoped the recent underground work and survey programme would begin to identify. Alongside this exploration upside, our immediate operational focus remains firmly on moving Maddens into production. A significant amount of material from both Jack's Reef and the main Maddens mine is already stockpiled on surface and we expect processing activity to commence this month. "We therefore have the combination of near-term production activity and a potentially important new geological opportunity developing at the same project."
View from Vox
Jack’s Reef is a useful addition into the mix at Maddens, which as well as showing prospectivity in all sorts of ways is about to go into production. ECR is continuing along its path of becoming a gold producer, and in due course will have income streams from several different projects. In the meantime, it’s good to see additional upside being developed too.