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attracting almost immediate follow-up. The top of the orebody was beneath less than metre of transported cover and calcrete. Exploration drilling commenced in mid-1995 and continued for several years on a campaign basis. The initial drilling programs intersected high grade ore but were unable to consistently hit the ore zones at depth. Further drilling and detailed structural interpretation of the drill core lead to the orebody being defined as several tightly folded linear shoots, plunging at about a 45 degree angle. As yet, the bottom of the ore body has not been discovered, although there are several faults offsetting the orebody. The project was Joint-ventured with
Samantha-Resolute in late 1995. Activities stopped during the late 1990s while Dominion negotiated to buy back Resolute's share of the project and then find another Joint-venture partner. Dominion was unable to find a Joint-venture partner and so in 2001 the company decided to develop the mine itself. The mine was initially an open pit, commencing in 2002 and converted to underground mining in 2005.
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within quartz-feldspar-biotite ± garnet-cordierite gneiss, a variation of
Christie gneiss. The host to gold mineralisation is a silica and feldspar rich greisenised pegmatite. These veins are typically ptygmatically folded. The deposit is typically shear hosted with the morphology of the mineralised envelope being lensoid in three dimensions and anastomosing in character. Coarse visible gold of variable size and in association with sulphide mineralisation is a common feature of the higher grade ore zones. Gold grains contain inclusions of arsenopyrite, pyritised pyrrhotite and native bismuth. All lodes remain open at depth and historical drilling of the M1 lode has demonstrated the continuity of the orebody to at least 2.8 km down-plunge. Both primary host rock and the quartz, feldspar, garnet veins associated with gold mineralisation are generally competent, necessitating minimal ground support. Underground conditions are effectively dry with little groundwater inflow into the mine.
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facilities, offices, workshops, a laboratory, ancillary buildings and haul roads. Water is supplied from a process water bore field located approximately 3 kilometres (2 mi) west of
Challenger. A diesel power station (PS1), supplies power to the treatment plant, and village. A secondary diesel power station (PS2) supplies power to the underground mine and surface ventilation fan.
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changed hands several times, with
Kingsgate taking over the project from Dominion in 2010, followed by WPG Resources in 2015. WPG appointed voluntary administrators, then receivers and managers in July and August 2018. The Challenger Mine has stopped operations and gone into Care and Maintenance.
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Challenger Gold Mine is an underground gold mine and processing facility. The infrastructure covers an area of approximately 300 hectares (740 acres) and includes the processing plant, a mine village housing up to 140 personnel working a fly-in /fly-out roster, aerodrome, reagent and fuel storage
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The ore body was discovered in early 1995 by
Dominion Mining Ltd. It was found by using the relatively new (at that time) method of sampling calcrete (calcium carbonate laterite). Broad sample spacing of 800m fortuitously "snagged" the sub-surface orebody with a single high gold in calcrete value
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The
Challenger deposit is located within portions of Christie gneiss, a member of the Mulgathing Complex that forms part of the Gawler Craton, a large crystalline basement province consisting of late Archaean to Mesoproterozic rocks that became stabilised by around 1,450 Ma. The deposit occurs
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lease. The site is either accessed by a nine-hour drive along sealed and unsealed roads or by Air which takes approximately 1.5 hours by plane from
Adelaide. The main access road is a private road and runs approximately 170 kilometres (110 mi) west from the Stuart Highway. The project has
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The mine had an estimated reserve of 512,000 ounces of gold from a resource of 1 million ounces of gold at June 2007. Mineral resource estimate on 30 June 2017 was 1,621,000 Tonnes of ore at a grade of 6.99 g/t for 364,000 oz gold.
305:. It was operated by Dominion, Kingsgate and then WPG Resources. The mine is now on Care and Maintenance. The deposit was named by the geologist who discovered it (David Edgecombe), after his dog.
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The mine lease is located in the Far North of South
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Kingsgate Annual report 2014, published: 23 October 2014, accessed: 13 November 2014
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539:Kingsgate Website, accessed: 13 November 2014
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362:Production figures of the recent past were:
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71:Learn how and when to remove this message
605:Dominion website, accessed: 27 July 2010
34:This article includes a list of general
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572:"WPG's Challenger mine closed"
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301:and 740 km north-west of
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263:/challenger-gold-project
347:Woomera Prohibited Area
55:more precise citations.
16:Mine in South Australia
596:Challenger: Production
133:Location in Australia
550:"Announcements 2018"
127:Challenger Gold Mine
552:. WPG Resources Ltd
272:Year of acquisition
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176:133°35′11″E
164:Coordinates
61:August 2019
53:introducing
659:Categories
518:References
511:US$ 1,504
497:US$ 2,030
374:Production
358:Production
206:Production
201:Production
173:29°52′36″S
86:Challenger
36:references
581:15 August
556:15 August
502:2013-14
483:A$ 1,397
446:2009-10
438:7.54 g/t
424:8.35 g/t
410:9.66 g/t
396:9.52 g/t
291:Far North
287:gold mine
261:/projects
158:Australia
630:Archived
599:Archived
533:Archived
508:4.8 g/t
494:3.9 g/t
488:2012-13
480:4.6 g/t
474:2011-12
466:4.3 g/t
460:2010-11
452:5.0 g/t
432:2008-09
418:2007-08
404:2006-07
390:2005-06
303:Adelaide
103:Location
469:A$ 786
455:A$ 697
441:A$ 438
427:A$ 367
413:A$ 309
399:A$ 280
349:on the
309:History
289:in the
250:Website
240:Company
222:History
217:2012-13
154:Country
49:improve
227:Opened
209:66,216
38:, but
379:Grade
285:is a
235:Owner
143:State
583:2019
558:2019
369:Year
281:The
275:2011
257:.com
230:2002
293:of
259:.au
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