Ravenswood Project
The Ravenswood Project is located to the south and east of Charters Towers in North Queensland and consists of five granted EPMs covering an area of 309 km2. The Ravenswood Project contains numerous prospects, historic drill intersections and geochemical anomalies located within the 17-million-ounce Charters Towers gold province including vein-hosted gold targets (e.g. Day Dawn, Pinnacle Creek) and Mount Leyshon style breccia pipe-hosted targets (e.g. Seventy Mile Mount, Matthews Pinnacle).
The Day Dawn prospect is located 25 km east-southeast of Charters Towers, on EPM 18426, within the Ravenswood Project area. Prospecting by Ballymore in 2020 recognised extensive quartz veining and scree in the Day Dawn area with initial rock chip samples reporting elevated gold, silver and lead up to 26.2 g/t Au, 431 g/t Ag and 1.42 % Pb (COR-006). The Day Dawn prospect hosts historic pits and shafts and sits within the major east-northeast trending Mount Leyshon Corridor but has never been the subject of systematic modern exploration. Numerous gold occurrences and mines occur locally along this structure including Mount Wright gold mine (1,000,000 oz Au), Hadleigh Castle gold mine (350,000 oz Au) as well as the Disraeli, Joe’s Delight, Robinson Crusoe gold mines and the Kirk Gold Field, which produced some 100,000 oz Au.
Follow-up field work and rock chip sampling completed has confirmed the large-scale potential of this newly identified mineralised zone. To date Ballymore has collected 84 rock chip samples in the Day Dawn - Old Man mine areas. Samples were typically of quartz +/- carbonate veins with hematite infill and galena +/- chalcopyrite in altered granodiorite as well as brecciated, altered granodiorite. Out of 84 samples, 61 samples have exceeded 1g/t Au, and 26 samples have exceeded 10 g/t Au with the best sample (COR-270) reporting 127.5 g/t Au, 708 ppm Ag and 2.83% Pb. In addition, many samples reported anomalous lead and silver, with 38 samples exceeding 100 g/t Ag, 13 samples exceeding 1000 g/t Ag and 35 samples exceeding 1.0% Pb.
Tenements
The Ravenswood Project comprises five granted exploration permits - Mt Leyshon EPM 18424, Cornishman EPM 18426, King Solomon EPM 18637, Charlie Creek EPM 25466 and Birthday Hills EPM 25467.
Previous Mining
Mining within the Ravenswood District is dominated by Mount Leyshon, Ravenswood, Mount Wright, Hadleigh Castle and Charter’s Towers mines. The dominant mineralisation in the Ravenswood Project area is the Mount Leyshon gold-silver deposit. Mount Leyshon is located immediately adjacent to EPM 18424. Mount Leyshon operated from 1986 until 2002, and produced approximately 3.8 Moz of gold and 2.4 Moz of silver (Queensland Department of Mines and Energy, 2009). Much of the modern exploration in the region has been directed towards finding Mount Leyshon style mineralisation.
In addition, the Hadleigh Castle mine, is located 8 km east-northeast of EPM 18426. Hadleigh Castle is a complex swarm of quartz-polymetallic sulphide veins hosted in a major shear zone and has produced 350,000 oz Au from 3.15 Mt of ore averaging 3.45 g/t Au from underground and open pit operations.
Recent field work at the Day Dawn prospect, along strike from Hadleigh Castle has reported extensive veining in the area. Rock chip results have reported up to 127.5 g/t Au and 708 g/t Ag.
The Ravenswood Project tenements host numerous smaller scale hard-rock and alluvial gold mines.
Exploration Program
Drilling of the exciting high-grade gold-silver target at the Day Dawn prospect commenced in August 2024.
Preparations are also underway to resume field work at the Pinnacle Prospect, located east of Mount Leyshon. The Pinnacle prospect hosts a number of breccia-hosted and vein hosted gold prospects, including Matthews Pinnacle, Seventy Mile Mount and Pinnacle Creek. Field programs in this area will include mapping and soil sampling, testing the greater area of this potentially major mineralised system.
