'Huge' gold deposits found in Victoria

by Maireid Sullivan | August 23, 2009 at 04:19 pm

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Instead of thousands of miners flocking from all over the world to dig for gold in Australia, the new gold rush will be conducted by huge mining corporations using large machinery to extract the gold. There are very few if any green gold mining operations. They use mercury to extract gold I believe. Imagine what the mining operations must do to get at the gold, which is down deep underground on prime agricultural land!

These new discoveries radiate out to the north and west of Melbourne in the state of Victoria, tripling the area of the massive digs of the 1850s Victorian gold rush, when the population soared beyond infrastructural capacity and the colony boomed. Melbourne and provincial centres prospered, the fruits of which are still visible today in the wide boulevards and elegant Victorian architecture.

AAP - August 17, 2009

HUGE gold deposits lie unexploited across Victoria with some ore-bearing rocks located just 100m below the surface, a state Government study reveals.
A three-year land survey shows about three million ounces of gold may be located in an area north of Melbourne, while millions more could be extracted with modern mining techniques north-west of the city.

Geologists have used new survey techniques to create a three-dimensional model of the land among with geochemical and geophysical data.

Energy and Resources Minister Peter Batchelor says the $9 million Government study indicates an estimated 70 million ounces of gold lie within reach across the state.

"The gold-bearing rocks there are within reach of modern drilling technology, with much of it under less than 100m of sediment," he said.

Gold hidden under sediment can be difficult to mine and costly to extract.

Mr Batchelor says the new study will help the mining industry examine the risks and focus efforts on regions more likely to yield returns.

The two survey areas identified as having a high potential for gold deposits are the Melbourne Zone - north and west from the city to Shepparton - and the Gold Undercover Zone, located near Swan Hill to around Horsham.