Dittmer Project
The Dittmer Project contains the historic, high-grade Dittmer mine which was discovered in 1934 and produced over 54,000 Oz of gold through to 1951. Ballymore has successfully identified an extension to the historic high-grade orebody and is engaged in studies with the aim of re-opening the Dittmer Mine, which operated during the 1930 – 50’s at a reported gold head grade of 151 g/t Au.
Tenements
The Dittmer Project is located 20km west of Proserpine in Central Queensland and comprises two granted MLs, one ML application and three granted EPMs covering an area of 513 km2. The Dittmer Project is located 20 – 50 km west and southwest of the regional centre of Proserpine in central Queensland.
Regional potential summary
The historic Dittmer Mine forms one of several old high-grade workings along a 2km north-northeast trending corridor which is also crosscut by a series of structures with associated historical workings. Field work, including mapping, rock chip, soil and stream sediment sampling, was completed by Ballymore in 2023 to assess Dittmer’s size potential.
Other nearby workings are primarily shallow, open pit mines that operated between the 1890’s and 1930’s and mined at average grades of up to 567 g/t (e.g. Loch Neigh Mine) with copper grades not reported. Despite the presence of extensive workings in the area, this corridor has undergone little or no modern exploration.
Exploration Program
Ballymore completed 5,703m of drilling across three campaigns at the Dittmer Mine with all 28 holes encountering gold with excellent continuity for a 100% strike rate. Drilling has confirmed that the main lode has been displaced and continues less than 30m away from historic workings and existing underground access.
In light of the positive drilling results around the Dittmer mine, the Company prepared additional underground drill sites and commenced the Stage 4 drill program in January 2024. This program took place during the wet season and was completed in April 2024 with another 14 holes (DTDD029 – 042B) completed for 2,933.1m. This program infilled previous drilling and tested a number of high-grade shoots in the displaced extension of the high-grade Duffer Lode. In addition, the program has confirmed that the lode structure extends for another 100m along strike and down-dip and is getting wider at depth. All 42 holes drilled to date have intersected gold mineralisation offset to within 30m of the historic workings with new drilling potentially doubling the area of known mineralisation.
Drilling to date has targeted a 350m x 300m area adjacent to the historic Dittmer mine and has demonstrated that this area contains extensive vein-hosted, high-grade gold mineralisation with associated copper and silver mineralisation.
In March 2024, Ballymore was awarded a A$300,000 Collaborative Exploration Initiative (CEI) grant from the Queensland Government to fund a geophysical survey at its Dittmer project. Magnetics is a key tool for exploring for porphyry copper deposits and is considered to be an invaluable dataset to assist exploration in the Dittmer area. The survey was commenced in June, collecting data of a high quality.
Following completion, Ballymore announced that this high-resolution heliborne magnetic and radiometric survey highlighted significant anomalies, including a 1200m x 800m pipe-like magnetic body around 400m beneath the historic Dittmer mine.
This pipe structure is analogous with several significant gold-copper porphyry deposits in Eastern Australia including Northparkes (3.3Moz gold / 2.9Mt copper) and Ridgeway (1.9Moz gold / 0.31Mt copper).
The Company has always believed that Dittmer was an Intrusive Related Gold System (IRGS), and these results have contributed greatly to our confidence that the major source for the gold and copper may sit beneath the mine and is associated with this magnetic body.
The Company is planning follow-up drilling at the earliest possible opportunity to test this exciting new target.
Ballymore also returned further evidence of a major gold system at Dittmer after the Company’s first three step-out surface drill holes intersected the bonanza Duffer lode structure and extended the high-grade mineralisation previously encountered around the Dittmer mine.
This regional surface drilling program at Dittmer is testing for strike extensions to the old mine area, as demonstrated by the large geochemical anomaly and the presence of high-grade historic surface workings over more than 2km.
The initial program is testing the areas immediately north and south of the Duffer Lode as well as other structures in the local area at a broad initial spacing. To date five holes have been completed (DTDD043 – 046 including DTDD046A re-drill) for a total of 529.3m and have confirmed extensions to the Duffer Lode and Loch Neigh Lode.
Drilling over this campaign and four previous stages, which targeted a 250m x 200m area adjacent to the historic Dittmer mine, has now intersected the Duffer lode over 530m. A significant footprint for this rich gold-bearing structure is emerging.
