Silver Lake Mine
History of Kambalda’s first nickel mine
Silver Lake nickel mine was developed on the Lunnon Shoot, named after diamond driller Jack Lunnon who drilled the discovery hole, KD1, in 1966. The mine was operated by WMC continuously from 1966 until its closure in the 1985/86 financial year, producing 4.54 million tonnes of ore at 2.72% Ni for over 123,000 tonnes of nickel metal based on WMC’s production records. The Silver Lake mine and the nickel shoots it hosts are developed on the southeast flank of the Kambalda Dome, with the historical workings plunging for approximately 2.5km to the south-southeast and extending over a vertical distance of at least 350m (from lake surface to 50m below sea level).
History of Kambalda’s First Nickel Mine
Silver Lake nickel mine was developed on the Lunnon Shoot, named after diamond driller Jack Lunnon who drilled the discovery hole, KD1, in 1966. The mine was operated by WMC continuously from 1966 until its closure in the 1985/86 financial year, producing 4.54 million tonnes of ore at 2.72% Ni for over 123,000 tonnes of nickel metal based on WMC’s production records. The Silver Lake mine and the nickel shoots it hosts are developed on the southeast flank of the Kambalda Dome, with the historical workings plunging for approximately 2.5km to the south-southeast and extending over a vertical distance of at least 350m (from lake surface to 50m below sea level).
First-time Mineral Resource for Silver Lake
Lunnon Metals announced a first-time Mineral Resource for the 25H deposit at Silver Lake on 4 December 2023. The 25H is located at the south end of the Silver Lake mine, at the Kambalda Gold & Nickel Project (KGNP). This first-time MRE follows receipt of final assays from the Company’s first pass surface diamond drill (DD) program into the deposit. The 25H MRE stands at 824,000 tonnes at 1.7% nickel for 13,800 contained nickel tonnes, comprising:
- 336,000 tonnes @ 1.6% Ni for 5,300 nickel tonnes in Indicated Resource; and
- 488,000 tonnes @ 1.7% Ni for 8,500 nickel tonnes in Inferred Resource.
Key implications of this initial 25H MRE include:
- Demonstration of potentially economic mineralisation on the Silver Lake – Fisher (SLF) project for the first time, since the deal to acquire the nickel rights from Gold Fields Ltd on these tenements settled in October 2022.
- Development of an initial Mineral Resource base immediately adjacent to the Company’s high-priority Long South Gap exploration area, the site of the recently completed, extensive 3D seismic survey by UltraMag Pty Ltd.
- Potential remains for high-grade shoots to be contained within the broad 30m to 170m current surface DD hole spacing
Silver Lake – Long South “Gap”
To the north and east of the Silver Lake Hanging Wall Exploration Target area, the Company is working with external consultants to plan a 3D seismic survey to provide detailed geophysical data input into the targeting of the area directly south of Mincor Resources NL’s McLeay and Moran deposits (previoulys owned by ASX:IGO), hosted at the south end of their Long Operation. This target area will be referred to in future reporting to the market as the “Silver Lake-Long South Gap”. Once the survey is planned the Company will provide an update on the timing of its execution and next steps.
FISHER NICKEL MINE
History of Fisher – the Second Mine Discovered
The Fisher deposit was discovered by WMC Resources Ltd in 1966 with diamond drill (DD) hole KD4, just after the famous Kambalda discovery hole (KD1) at Lunnon Shoot (Silver Lake mine). A decline commenced in February 1971 and first production occurred in October of the same year . A total of 1.65Mt at 2.31% Ni was produced and delivered to the nearby Kambalda Concentrator containing 38,070t of nickel metal. The mine ceased production in 1988 and was sold along with Foster, Silver Lake and Jan nickel mines as part of the divestment of WMC’s gold operations at Kambalda (St Ives Gold Mine) to Gold Fields Ltd in December 2001.
Fisher closed with significant nickel mineralisation potential left poorly defined or not closed off. The mine sits along strike to the south from the Ken/Coronet nickel mine previously operated by Mincor Resources NL (now owned by Wyloo Metals) and along strike to the north-northwest of the Hunt and Beta nickel deposits, currently being operated by TSX listed Karora Resources.
Some 2.5km strike corridor of potential channel environment, to the south side of the mine, can be categorised as either under-explored or having received no modern exploration focus for at least 20 years, and up to 35 years in some cases.
The Company’s work program at Fisher has focused on applying its Historical Core Program to access, re-log, re-cut and then re-assay some of the 260km of historical WMC diamond core drilled in Silver Lake-Fisher project area during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Areas of remnant nickel sulphide mineralisation remained at the time of mine closure and form the basis of the initial ranking and high priority work by Lunnon Metals to define and report Mineral Resources in compliance the modern JORC (2012) Code.
On 15 January 2024, the Company reported a first-time MRE for the F Zone at Fisher totaling 252,000 tonnes at 1.9% nickel (Ni) for 4,700 contained nickel tonnes, comprising:
- 56,000 tonnes @ 2.7% Ni for 1,500 nickel tonnes in Indicated Resource; and
- 196,000 tonnes @ 1.6% Ni for 3,200 nickel tonnes in Inferred Resource.