50% rise today
after annoucment.
UNDERGROUND MINE IDENTIFIED ON MONTE CHRISTO LEASE
An underground mine has been identified by Cluff’s drilling at the Monte Christo Mining
Lease, on the Bingara Diamond Field. Whilst drilling at a depth of 5.9 metres (20 feet) the
wire line core barrel dropped 1.8 metres, 0.9 metres through an open hole, and another
0.9 metres through very soft mud interpreted as soft rock shovelled into a cavity. The cavity
is interpreted as old mine workings.
The hole (MCR 26) is located on the 20 acre Monte Christo mining lease, from which
about 18,000 carats of diamonds were reported to have been produced at extremely
high grades, initially at up to 5000 carats per hundred tones, but averaging 500 carats per
hundred tones by 1903, according to NSW Mines Department records.
Figure 1 shows the location of drill hole MCR 26, fifty metres south of Cluff’s open cut from
which 1,400 carats of diamonds were recovered in the 1990s. This open cut mined tunnels
stated by the NSW Mines Department to be the Monte Christo Mine (NSW Dept Mines
Annual Report, 1894), but grades recovered were not consistent with Captain Rogers’ worldrenowned
Monte Christo Mine. Information for the maps was supplied to the Mines
Department by a third party, however, and is now considered by Cluff to describe earlier
workings on the lease.
The hole was sited within a group of old shafts, to confirm that they were used for production.
Intersection of an 1.8 metre high mining cavity in the drill hole indicates substantial
production. Further drilling and pitting for bulk sampling is underway to determine
whether this is the former Monte Christo Mine.
The Monte Christo Diamond Mine was worked underground on two near horizontal levels by
shafts 30 feet (9 metres) and 50 feet (15 metres) deep. This cavity may be the upper level of
this mine, worked from the nearby 50 foot shaft.
The lower level may also have been mined by this shaft. Clays drilled below this cavity
contained chert pebbles in a 2.8 metre bed above the hard basement at 13.5 metres. As
similar pebbles were recorded in the shaft waste dump, it is possible that the shaft also gave
access to the lower level.
Additional drill holes are under way to confirm the best location for a pit to investigate the
cavity, and bulk sample both the upper and lower levels. A bulk sampling pit is currently in
progress near drill hole MRP 25 to test whether a fragmental rock penetrated between 5 and
7.5 metres carries diamonds.