Central Murchison Gold Project

The Central Murchison Gold Project (CMGP) is located between the towns of Mt Magnet and Cue approximately 600km north-east of Perth, Western Australia. The Project access is via a sealed highway from Perth or via air with a sealed airstrip at Mt Magnet. The Dampier to Bunbury pipeline runs within close proximity to the Project area, potentially facilitating a gas powered electricity source.
CMGP contains three key project areas synonymous with the three historic mining centres. These are:

• The Day Dawn Goldfield
• The Murchison Bell Project
• The Cuddingwarra Goldfield

Central Murchison Gold Project showing historical production from each of the three key project areas of Murchison Bell, Day Dawn and Cuddingwarra.

Regional Geology

CMGP is situated within the Mt Magnet greenstone belt in the Murchison Province of the Archaean Yilgarn Craton. The Mount Magnet greenstone belt consists of a complexly deformed sequence of ultramafic, mafic and felsic volcanics with interbedded banded iron formations (BIFs) and other sediments.

The figure below highlights the regional setting of the Murchison Province which is characterised by a granitoid – greenstone terrain. The Cuddingwarra deposits lie along the north-south orientated Cuddingwarra Shear, whereas both the Great Fingall and Big Bell deposits lie along north-easterly orientated structural trends. Gold mineralisation at all deposits indicates a strong structural control.

Simplified Geology of the Murchison Province and project areas.

History of Production

Gold was first discovered in Murchison province in 1888 and over 12M ounces of gold have been produced from surface and underground sources.

Day Dawn

Great Fingall Mine

Gold was first discovered at Day Dawn in 1891 by Mr Ned Heffernan who pegged out what became known as the Day Dawn Reef. The settlement of Day Dawn was established in 1895.

The mine produced vast amounts of gold and was a major factor in the extension of railway facilities to the region in 1897. In 1898, the mine was taken over by the Great Fingall Consolidated Gold Mining Company and was thereafter known as the Great Fingall Mine. In a 1904 New York Times newspaper article titled ‘The Worlds Greatest Gold Mines’ the Great Fingall Mine was listed as one with ‘yields which bring them into the first rank of gold producers’.

From 1910 to 1916 the region suffered from economic decline and the on set of World War One. On 12 April 1918, it was confirmed that the mine had closed. Effectively, the closure of the mine meant the end of Day Dawn. The town had disappeared altogether by the 1930s. Production from the underground mine is reported as 1,186,451 from 1,897,141 T @ 19.5 g/T Au.

Golden Crown Mine

The deposit was first mined in 1897 and up to 1902 had been developed to a vertical depth of 80m with relatively low grades. This activity was coincident with mining on the Great Fingall reef located 400m north where bonanza grades of reef were encountered from surface.

In 1935, the lease was acquired by WMC who drilled four diamond holes and then the lease was relinquished by and was subsequently picked up by ACM in 1969.

ACM drilled six holes and de-watered the old workings to evaluate the potential and in 1983 and discovered that the old workings were actually in what appears to be a depletion zone down to 120m vertical depth. Positive drilling results from depth enabled a resource calculation of 350,000 t @ 21g/t Au (237,000 oz). This was followed by a shaft sinking in December 1983 and in 1986 the mine was officially opened.

In 1991, ACM was taken over by Posgold, a division of Normandy Mining Limited. The ore was then trucked to and processed at the Big Bell plant as additional feed to their mill. This was concurrent with ore haulage from the various open pit operations also operated by Normandy. The Company operated the mine up to 1996 when the mine was placed on care and maintenance. The reason for cessation of mining is apparently the fact that development could not keep up with production. Production from the underground mine is reported as 288,017 oz from 648,427 T @ 13.8g/T Au.

Cuddingwarra

Gold was first discovered in the Cuddingwarra area in 1891. Intensive quartz reef mining occurred up to 1907. Records indicate that 34,503.3t of ore with 1266.96 kg recovered gold were mined from the district between 1897 and 1939 (Woodward 1907, Watkins and Hickman 1990). Systematic modern exploration of the area for gold was not attempted until 1982. Open pit mines at Cuddingwarra have produced 780,000 Oz Au at an average grade of 2.1 g/t Au between 1999-2003.

Murchison Bell

In 1904 gold was discovered by prospector Harry Paton. From 1910 open pit mining commenced and subsequently operated by various owners. Underground operations only commenced in the mid-1990’s. The vast majority of the 2.6 Moz of gold produced came from the underground mining operations which ceased in 2003.

Current Resources

Substantial remnant resources and newly defined gold exploration targets exist within the titles. The Central Murchison Gold Project is now the main focus of Aragon with the clear aim to expand the resource base and advance towards production.

Total current JORC resources of approximately 1.5 million ounces with over 900,000 ounces in the “indicated” category at 4.7g/t have been defined. The summary resource table demonstrates the magnitude of the resource inventory and the number of targets that have proven production history and which there remains potential to increase inventory at current gold prices. In addition, exploration works completed in the six years since closure of operations has defined many new targets and exploration opportunities.

Project Overview

Day Dawn Goldfield

The Day Dawn mining centre has an estimated historic production of approximately 1.6 million ounces and the current total Identified Mineral Resource estimate (JORC) is 488,000 oz.

The Day Dawn Goldfield is characterised by the favoured host of the Great Fingall Dolerite (GFD). This geological unit manifests as a contrasting brittle host that allows quartz-filled fault and shear structures to widen and ramify establishing larger mining structures. The GFD coincident with numerous indentified exploration targets and historic workings along its strike and there remains excellent potential to define further deposits and to expand existing open pits and underground resources.

The Great Fingall underground mine, which was closed in 1918 is an exciting opportunity to re-establish a long term high grade operation due to the grade and quantity of resources (902,000 tonnes @ 9.5g/t for 275,000 oz). A claim, requiring clarification of a 49% Joint Venture interest exists below 500m.

More recently the Great Fingall open pit has produced approximately 82,000 ounces from ramified quartz lodes that splay off the main Great Fingall structure and a remnant mineable resource of 88,000 oz remains in the floor of the current pit. Aragon believes that there is excellent potential to define further significant mineralisation along strike adjacent to the pit limits.

Underground resource extensions will also be targeted at the neighbouring Golden Crown underground mine where the current total Identified Mineral Resource estimate is 238,000 tonnes @ 8.3g/t for 63,000 oz. Previous work has identified extensive high grade reefs and splay development.

The Cuddingwarra Project

The Cuddingwarra mining centre has an aggregate historic production of approximately 800,000 oz. The current total Identified Mineral Estimate (JORC) is 349,000 oz within numerous historical pits and prospects. Since mining ceased in the area, about 6 years ago, exploration has continued. A comprehensive database, including a recent Sub Audio Magnetic survey reveals many targets still to be evaluated.

Aragon has identified a number of high priority exploration targets worthy of drill testing. In particular, de-magnetised zones of the mafic sequence indicated in the imagery are interpreted to result from cross cutting structures that have allowed for the introduction of mineral bearing fluids and these areas are considered to hold excellent potential for additional new discoveries similar to those discovered and mined in the field in more recent times.

In addition, there remain obvious opportunities for extensions of the previously mined deposits at Black Swan South, Rheingold and Golden Gate.

The Murchison Bell Project

The Murchison Bell mining centre is an elongate trend of Archaean greenstone metamorphosed to hornblende facies and transacted by a major shear zone extending several kilometres in a north-east south-west direction. Previous production along the shear has won 2.6 million ounces from open pit and underground operations and there remains excellent potential to define additional deposits along it strike length. The current total Identified Mineral Resource estimate (JORC) on the line of lode is 657,000oz.

Structural jogs along the shear have resulted in economic accumulations of lensoidal mineralisation that vary from 6m to over 35m in width and extend to a depth of at least 1500m below surface. Shallow historical drilling has identified areas of anomalism and the proven structure remains under-explored at depth adding to its potential.