Southern Cross Gold team focused on making Sunday Creek a Cinderella story

By Yolanda Torrisi

Journalist, ASIA’S Resource Connections Executive Director, and mining stocks investor

 

Mawson Gold’s (TSX:MAW) spin off child, Southern Cross Gold (ASX:SXG) began trading on the ASX on Monday, 16 May and despite a volatile time on markets across the globe, the stock has spent its first week trading above water.

The management of Southern Cross Gold, headed by Managing Director Michael Hudson and General Manager Lisa Gibbons, hosted a group of investors to a site visit of their flagship Sunday Creek project recently showing a can-do approach and confident approach to unlocking further discoveries in the Victorian Goldfields.

In their first ASX announcement showcasing drilling results, Southern Cross Gold announced:

“high-grade (multiple >15g/t Au intersections up to 81.2 g/t Au and 3.4% Sb) and wide zones (broad zones over 30m) of gold and antimony mineralisation in assay results returned from six diamond drill holes (MDDSC027, SDDSC028-32) drilled during the recent IPO process at the Sunday Creek project in the Victorian Goldfields.

The Sunday Creek epizonal-style gold project is located 60km north of Melbourne within 19,365 hectares of granted exploration tenements. The Company considers Sunday Creek to be one of the better new exploration discoveries to come out of Victoria in recent times with twelve (12) >100 AuEq g/t x m holes now intersected. Mineralisation remains open at depth and along strike. A 10km mineralised trend that extends beyond the drill area is defined by historic workings and soil sampling at Sunday Creek that has yet to receive any exploration drilling which offers potential future upside.”

Sunday Creek is located in the Melbourne Zone, which despite historically producing more than 10Moz of gold is generally considered a vastly unexplored part of Victoria.  Add this to the recent discovery of very high grades of gold at the Fosterville mine, north of Melbourne, that has created the highest-grade underground gold mine in the world, and Victoria is now firmly back on the global gold map.  Historic focus has been more so on the Ballarat and Bendigo fields that have been pored over.  These fields geologically host a different style of gold to Fosterville and Sunday Creek and this has created the opportunity that Southern Cross seeks to benefit, by applying the new geological understanding to emulate the success of Fosterville.

Sunday Creek is Southern Cross Gold’s most advanced project and exploration is focusing on gold and antimony. To date the team has conducted some 6000 metres of drilling across 37 holes over one linear kilometre of the tenement. Historic mineralization extends a further 10km to the north-east with zero drill testing.

So far 8 100g*m gold intercepts have been identified. Currently there is 2,278 metres of core from 10 holes in labs awaiting assays. Results are imminent. The company has been drilling in earnest for the past 18 months and is well funded for further drilling for the next two years.

Smaller programs are planned for the company’s Redcastle Joint Venture with Nagambie Resources where drilling is planned east of the world-class Fosterville gold mine and north of the equally world-class Costerfield antimony mine.

At the Whroo Joint Venture, near Rushworth, also with Nagambie Resources, geophysics is initially planned with a follow up drill campaign.

Sunday Creek General Manager Lisa Gibbons says, the Melbourne Zone, where the Sunday Creek project is located, is underexplored compared to other old goldfields in Australia. With so many good discoveries coming out of Victoria we really are going through a renaissance in the Victorian gold industry.

Making an impact without leaving a footprint

Southern Cross Gold is leading the way among the junior mining sector in its ESG credentials.

“We were the first junior mining company to be certified for our ESG credentials by Digbee Ltd. Our ESG credentials are important to us as a company and how we operate on the lands we have been granted to conduct our exploration,” Lisa Gibbons says.

Southern Cross Gold has implemented a number of initiatives within its working parameters to recycle and minimize its carbon footprint.

The company has been purchasing Discoverer core trays which are made from recycled plastics. In fact, Southern Cross Gold was recently awarded a certificate of recognition for saving 5.71 tonnes of kerbside plastic from entering landfill.

Sunday Creek is located on Taungurung Country. Southern Cross Gold works with the Taungurung Land and Water’s Council (TLaWC) to ensure that the Taungurung Cultural heritage is preserved on all its projects.  Southern Cross Gold has also engaged Biik Environmental, a division of the TLaWC that was created to employ local people and empower Taungurung people as custodians of their country.

“As part of our commitment to low impact exploration, our rig has rubber tracks so we don’t have to build new roads. Furthermore, we undertake diamond drilling which, although more expensive, is quieter, dust free and it gives us more valuable geological information,” Lisa Gibbons says.

The latest initiative by Lisa’s team at Southern Cross Gold is to combine with other mining and exploration companies to obtain critical mass for core blocks and calico sampling bags which could be made by NDIS workshops.

“If the order is big enough with a few of the mining companies around here banding together, we can provide the tools and equipment so that we can get these made locally,” Lisa Gibbons says.

Exploration for gold and antimony in the Melbourne zone has experienced a renewed focus. Antimony features highly on the critical minerals lists of many countries including Australia, the United States of America, Canada, Japan and the European Union. Australia ranks 7^th for global antimony production despite all production coming from a single mine at Costerfield in Victoria.  During World War 1, ore from Sunday Creek was treated at Costerfield.  China’s share of global antimony resources amounts to 32% followed by Russia (23%), Bolivia (21%) and Australia (7%)

It’s popularity as a critical metal is growing as a major component of the new-age liquid metal batteries which are expected to be able to power a city of more than a million homes. Australia has a critical role to play in the supply of antimony to power the world’s next generation of power sources.

Yolanda Torrisi is a shareholder of Southern Cross Gold and attended the company-hosted visit to the