Tin-Tungsten

The Stannary Hills and Mt Garnet tin-tungsten projects are located within the Herberton Tin Field which produced over 75,000 tonnes of tin metal between 1880 and 1930. Tin production continued intermittently until 2012. The Herberton Field hosts over 2,400 historic tin mines (see Figure 1).

The Vulcan Mine was the largest operation in the district, producing 180,792 tonnes @ 7.6% Sn between the 1880s and 1980s, to a depth of 440m. The Vulcan Mine is not located within Koba’s project areas.

There are more than 400 historical tin mines within the Company’s project areas. Most of the mines operated from the late 1880s until the mid-1930s. The Gilmore Mine was later reactivated between 1958 to 1980, while the You and Me Mine, part of the Kitchener Trend, operated until 1985 before closing due to declining tin prices.

In addition to tin, the Herberton Tin Field has produced 12,260 tonnes of tungsten.  The region is also highly prospective for Ag-In mineralsation.

Exploration at both projects has historically focused on tin mineralisation and there has been limited exploration and no drilling to deliberately target tungsten. However, high-grade tungsten was intersected near the Gilmore Mine (as described above), with significant tungsten results including:

• • • • • 3m @ 1.2% W from 27m; and
        • 3m @ 0.95% W from 175m.

Rock chip samples have been collected across the projects and analysed for tungsten. High-grade tungsten assays (>1% W) were returned across both projects with an extremely high peak value of 15.3% W north of the Boulder Prospect (see Figure 2).

The presence of high-grade drill results and rock chip samples demonstrate the strong potential for the discovery of high-grade tungsten mineralisation at the Project with a targeted tungsten exploration and drilling program.

Figure 2. Plan showing the distribution of extremely high-grade tungsten rock chip results across the Mt Garnet Tin-Tungsten Project.