Brightstar Resources’ Cork Tree Well Project boasts a combined JORC 2012-compliant Mineral Resource of 6.4Mt for 303koz at 1.4g/t Au. The Cork Tree Well Project is located approximately 35km north of Laverton on the Bandya Station Road and is serviceable via an unsealed track 3km west of the Bandya Road.
Formerly an operating minesite that produced 46koz of gold, Brightstar Resources anticipates returning Cork Tree Well in the short to mid-term to capitalise on its location 35km north of Laverton and approximately 60km from the Brightstar Plant at Beta.
Cork Tree Well’s Mineral Resource is hosted within the narrow greenstone belt linking the Laverton and Duketon greenstone belts. The deposit lies along the western limb of the Erlistoun synclinal structure. The sequence includes mafic volcanic lavas, tuffs, and tuffaceous sediments with minor interflow graphitic shales and banded iron formation. Outcrop is poor with alluvial, eluvial and aeolian cover to the north and south of the open pit areas.
The mine area consists of footwall, high magnesium basalts altered to chlorite schist overlain by graphitic shales containing chert and banded iron beds, and younger hanging wall tholeiitic pillow basalts. Mineralisation at the Cork Tree Well mine is contained within interflow cherts and sediments which contained pervasive pyrite, pyrrhotite and magnetite mineralisation. The sediments which host the gold mineralisation have been intruded by concordant porphyry sills which extend the length of the mineralised zone. The sediment sequence has been traced south of the existing pits where it is truncated south of the tenement boundary by granite intrusives.
Cork Tree Well was a substantial historic mining operation that included mining from two pits, a carbon in pulp plant, and discharge to a three cell tails storage facility. The mine was supported by a nearby mining camp and airstrip, and the facility also treated ore from the nearby historic King of Creation operation. Operations closed in June 1988, and total recorded production for Cork Tree Well was 699,155t @ 2.3 g/t Au for approximately 46,000 ounces. Treatment of satellite resources through the Cork Tree Well CIP plant continued until 1994.
