Nestled in the green mountains 20 km west of Proserpine sits Dittmer Mine.

Dittmer has been etched into our region’s own piece of Gold Rush history; now modern-day prospectors Ballymore Resources are hoping to strike gold.

It has been more than 150 years since the Prosperine Goldfields were established where significant findings were made around Kelsey Creek.

Ballymore Resources are taking advantage of modern exploration of the mine, and this is the first time new technologies, including systematic multi element soil testing, geophysics and drilling are being used to unlock the future possibilities that lie within its rock.

And the potential is golden, as it raises new opportunities for our workforces and supply chains, but also avenues to explore around reprocessing and Post Mining Land Use solutions.

Ballymore Resources Director of Operations Andrew Gilbert said there were two types of exploration: green fields exploration, which is a site that has never had any exploration  and brown field  exploration, which is in and around  historic or active mining.

Andrew said there is exploration potential as part of the Dittmer project, but the key is to define what is in the ground and that is where modern exploration is finding the answers.

And for Ballymore Resources that  has been the real step change.

“There has been historic mining from the pre 1900s  through to the 1930s, 50s and into the 80s and 90s.

“But even at that stage they just came in and mined what were the old workings from the old-timers  doing their own version of exploration , walking in finding rocks and following the trails. 

“For us we were able to come in and see a real opportunity and apply a lot of modern exploration techniques, Andrew said.

Some of those modern techniques include multi element soil sampling and modern geophysics, which has been the biggest game changer in terms of narrowing down the regional potential to target the areas of highest prospectivity for drilling and further advanced activities.

“Amazingly, the Dittmer mine despite being one of the highest-grade gold mines in Australia, never had a drill hole into it. After completing the first detailed soil sampling and geophysical surveys, we are  at the point where we are now, which is  underground drilling. This is the final  step into exploration and defining  a mineable resource where a gold system is”.

Dittmer once had the highest-grade gold mine in Australia and the goldmine at Kelsey Creek  was acquired by Felix Dittmer in  1930s, which gave rise to the town of Dittmer.

Fast forward to 2019 and the beginnings of Ballymore Resources and reviewing Queensland open data  sources where the potential of Dittmer really stood out.

“We really feel that Dittmer was an unloved piece of Queensland, we saw there was an opportunity to fill in some of those data gaps”.
-Ballymore Resources, Andrew Gilbert

“It stood out in terms of its high-grade production151 g per tonnes which is astronomical  grades these days.   

“The things that stuck out for us is that no modern exploration had been done. 

“The big major companies did some basic regional exploration in areas on our southern tenements,  but they were looking for other things and often didn’t even assay for gold.

“We  really feel that Dittmer was an unloved piece of Queensland, we saw there was an opportunity to fill in some of those data gaps.

“There are always new techniques and ways of exploring, as the saying goes learn to fish where the fish are.

“Knowing there was a system here and a reasonably defined set of old workings , it gives you the confidence to invest further.

“Opening up the historic workings has allowed us to gather invaluable information on the system and has further reinforced the decision to invest in more regional groundwork to further evaluate just how big this system could be,” he said. 

Recently Ballymore Resources secured two grants as part of the Queensland Government’s Collaborative Exploration Initiative.

Andrew said they have been able to use a new technology with help from the grant including flying a low level heli-borne gradient Magnetic and Radiometric survey over the entire Dittmer project area which previously had some of the worst magnetic coverage in the state. This data set-  becomes open file data  for the government and other companies to access.

“There is a change  of technologies that can be applied to these old areas that have never had this work  done before. 

“Some of the data didn’t exist in the past but as technology and computers have advanced and the way things are now  processed has been the step change.

“In the past few years- that  is where technology is advancing at a rapid rate,” he said.  

For the next five years Ballymore Resources will have a heavy focus on Dittmer  as it is their most advanced project.

“I think we are really targeting turning Dittmer into a potential  new mine in Queensland.

“We are also looking to the regional potential of this Dittmer project because we are drilling  at another prospect south of us called Cedar Ridge which has big similarities to what we are looking at Dittmer. “We think there is potential to develop an economic mine in the area and progress that to the next stage,” Andrew said.  

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