The Daisy Milano gold mine located approximately 55 kilometres southeast of Kalgoorlie in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia has done a 360 degree turn in mining methods with its present owners Silver Lake Resources seeing traditional hand held mining practices reintroduced at the mine.

The Daisy Milano ore is a very narrow vein, high grade gold in quartz ore body with virtually no gold present in the porphyry/andesite host rock. The vein widths are typically a few millimetres to several centimetres in width and are difficult to extract economically using modern mechanised techniques. Hence Silver Lake Resources looked at the options of handheld stoping with mechanised strike drive development and believe they have given themselves the best chance of success. The common perception is that hand held mining is a high risk activity but given the correct mix of planning, supervision and experience Silver Lake Resources have demonstrated that hand held mining can be a safe and efficient mining method in narrow vein ore bodies. Daisy Milano has celebrated over 700 days LTI free which is a mile stone event at any operation.

Silver Lake Resources engage up to twelve airleg miners at Daisy Milano and they account for approximately 30% of the average monthly ore production. Airleg stoping allows the miners to follow the veins up between levels and install ground support as the stope progresses which minimises dilution into the stope. Stope widths are typically less than 1.5 metres wide.

Previous mine owners have attempted to employ traditional longhole open stoping at Daisy Milano but Silver Lake Resources saw the best mining method for them was to do an a 360 degree turn and return to airleg mining which was the mining method used in the upper levels of the mine with great success. Despite the use of tried and true technology in the airleg rockdrill Silver Lake Resources can recognise a good idea when they see one and have recently installed a Safescape Laddertube ladder system at the mine. The attraction of the Laddertube was the relative ease of installation, the fully enclosed ladder system affording protection to personnel and the plastic construction which is not prone to corrosion. I would certainly encourage any operation to consider the merits of using of the Safescape Laddertube system for their emergency egress ladderways.

For enquiries on Silver Lake Resources visit their website at www.silverlakeresources.com.au or call Dave on (08) 6313 3800.

Thanks to David Crockford, Mining Manager at Silver Lake Resources for this blog.