Avon Plains Gold Project (AU)

Project highlights

Bubalus granted option to acquire a further portfolio of Victorian exploration licences covering approximately 1,063 km2 in close proximity to the operating, high-grade Stawell and Kingston gold mines.

  • Licences contain the Avon Plains Historic Gold Mine.
  • Despite reported high-grade gold production in the late 1800s and early 1900s this gold occurrence is not listed in various Victorian online databases.
  • Avon Plains Licence is largely covered by shallow Murray Basin sediments – a key target area identified through the Victorian “Gold Undercover” study series.
  • Bubalus plans to conduct a drilling program aimed at delineating gold bearing reef orientation, extent and grade.
  • Landholder access agreement in place to allow near term execution of this drilling.
  • Bubalus will implement a broad-based geochemical sampling program across the remainder of the licence areas targeting new discoveries, and recorded gold occurrences.

About the project

The primary licence, Avon Plains (EL007115), is located north of operating mines at Stawell, and a high-grade small scale operation at Kingston (Figure 1).

The Avon Plains Historic Gold Mine is located on farmland within the granted Exploration Licence EL007115, located approximately 30 km west of St Arnaud in central western Victoria. Despite local knowledge of the remaining historic mine shaft, the mine and associated gold occurrences are not noted in Victorian online databases. Importantly, the Vendor has a land access agreement in place with the landholder.

Figure 1: Location of Avon Plains Licences and other Victorian licences optioned by BUS

The historic shaft at Avon Plains is situated at the northern boundary of the Pyrenees Gold Province, which contains several sediment hosted goldfields, the closest of which is the St Arnaud Goldfield, centered around the township of St Arnaud, 30 km to the east (Figure 2).  Gold is hosted in quartz reefs associated with dykes along steep southwest dipping faults cutting sandstones and slates. The closest recorded mine site is 22.5 km east of the historic shaft, in the St Arnaud goldfield, with the operating Kingston Gold Mine located 30 km to the south. The Avon Plains Historic Mine area is predominantly covered in tertiary fluvial, alluvial and paludal sands, silts and clays and Cambrian marine sandstones, siltstones and biotite schists of the St Arnaud Group, which also hosts the gold occurrences of the St Arnaud Goldfield. Outcrop is sparse, suggesting the area could be underexplored, providing an opportunity for new discoveries beneath the shallow cover. The Stawell Zone, including the Avon Plains Gold Project, was featured in the Gold Undercover study conducted by the Victorian government in 20091, which identified potential for 33 undiscovered mineralisation fields within the undercover section of the Stawell Zone in Victoria (Figure 3).

Assessment of undiscovered mesozonal orogenic gold endowment under cover in the northern part of the Stawell Zone (Victoria) V.A. Lisitsin, A. Olshina, D.H. Moore, and C.E. Willman Gold Undercover Report 13, February 2009.

Figure 2: Avon Plains Infrastructure and nearby mines
Figure 3: Location of Avon Plains within the Stawell Zone with the assessment area under cover outlined in red, an area which covers the northern Victorian part of the Stawell Zone with no outcrop of Cambrian sedimentary and volcanic rocks, although they are known in the subsurface (based on Gold Undercover Report 13, Fig 4)
Summary of Historical Information

The local Historical Society was tasked (by the Vendor) with uncovering information relating to the Avon Plains Historic Gold Mine, and discovered several newspaper articles and reports from which the following information is summarised.  Bubalus has verified most of these sources and discovered further information through the course of due diligence in relation to this transaction.

  • A claim was pegged in the 1890s following the discovery of traces of gold in a quartz ridge.
  • Two shafts were sunk, 450 feet apart, with crosscuts to the reef. (No 2. Shaft remains and was located during the recent site visit. No. 1 shaft is believed to have been located about 150 m north and has since been filled in for cropping purposes) (Figure 4).
  • The reef width was stated to be between 15 inches and two feet, and sometimes up to three to four and a half feet wide.
  • Excessive water caused issues from a depth of 60 feet, becoming more troublesome as the depth increased.  By two to three hundred feet continuously worked bailing tanks could no longer keep up with water removal. The mine was forced to close due to the heavy expenditure required to deal with water flow in approximately 1907.
Next Steps

Based on historic articles and preliminary field observations, the mineralised reef is likely to have a northeast trend, plunging 40 degrees to the north and dipping to the east.

The Company intends to implement a drilling program at Avon Plains in Q4, 2025, aimed at delineating the gold bearing reef orientation, grade and extent, with a series of SE-NW lines (perpendicular to the NE trend of the historic shaft and low quartz outcrop, visible in satellite imagery) with holes dipping toward the NW to intercept the east dipping reef.  

The Company will also implement a broad-based geochemical sampling program across the remainder of the licence areas targeting new discoveries, and recorded gold occurrences.

More extensive soil sampling is intended to be undertaken, across the NE trending zones visible on the satellite imagery, as well as further sampling across the broader licence area.