Cadia Valley ML 1405 | mine

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This is Mining License 1405 which is one of four that comprise the Cadia Valley Operations (CVO) which are 100% owned by Newcrest Mining Limited. CVO consists of the Cadia Hill open pit mine and 2 underground mine, Cadia East and Ridgeway. The mines produce gold dore and a copper-gold concentrate.

Gold and copper were discovered in the Cadia area as far back as 1851, with sporadic production from several deposits. Iron Duke, also know as Big Cadia, was the largest mine and it produced in excess of 100,000 t of secondary copper ore. Newcrest discovered Cadia Hill in 1992 and then Cadia East in 1994 during widely spaced step out drilling from Cadia Hill. Cadia East Underground (formerly referred to as Cadia Far East) was discovered in 1996 by drilling beneath previously outlined gold-copper mineralization. The discovery hole for the Ridgeway deposit was drilled in late 1996.

The producing CVO gold-copper deposits are hosted in arc-related calc-alkalic to shoshonitic Ordovician to early Silurian volcano sedimentary rocks that occur in the Molong Volcanic Belt, one of four segments of the dismembered Macquarie Arc, in the eastern Lachlan Orogen, New South Wales.