Golden Queen feels Soledad could be heap leach mine

Assembling a land position in the United States is sometimes tougher than delineating an orebody, especially when property ownership is fragmented. This was the case with Golden Queen Mining (VSE) which has outlined a significant gold deposit on its 1,100-acre Soledad-Starlight property in southern California.

The company has spent almost two years piecing together what it describes as “an extremely complex land package,” one that covers producing veins on and around Soledad mountain including the old Golden Queen mine which was operated by Goldfields Mining before it closed in 1942. The property is four miles south of Mojave and 60 miles from Bakersfield.

Three phases of exploration have been completed by Golden Queen so far, the last of which began in mid-August. At that point, proven and probable reserves totaled 5.7 million tons grading 0.051 oz gold while inferred reserves amounted to 9.6 million tons averaging 0.049 oz. Wide-spaced drilling has located other mineralized areas since then and in-fill drilling has firmed up some of the established reserves, the company notes.

The company believes the project could represent a significant heap leach producer and a theoretical pit outline has already been established to incorporate old mining workings which are quite extensive. Milling records are incomplete but an estimated one million tons of ore grading 0.23 oz was processed before the mine closed because of the war. But heap leach grades would be considerably lower.

Much of the new reserves occur between old stoping areas which were uneconomic to mine at the time and these sections have been incorporated into their new pit plan. Although it’s subject to refinement, the strip ratio will probably be about 3:1, the company predicts.

Vein widths vary from 3-50 ft and the vein systems are “remarkably consistent both along strike and to the southwest,” according to a company consultant. Native gold and argentite are the primary minerals but minor chalcopyrite, galena, and cerargyrite have also been noted.

Metallurgical test work is still fairly preliminary; tests have been completed on 15 composite samples which yielded recoveries of 90.4% for gold and 80.7% for silver. The oxidation level in the region extends below 600 ft and sulphide minerals do not appear to be a problem, The Northern Miner is told. Fine grinding was required by the previous operators to liberate the gold so determining proper crushing size will obviously be important for any heap leach operation.

Golden Queen is 54%-owned by Ventures Trident Limited Partnership which has a group mine finance fund of over $115 million(US).