Cadia-Ridgeway Mine

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In the Cadia Hill Mine and the Ridgeway Mine, located just three kilometers away and have the same owner, ore bodies are mined from copper and gold. The mines located about 20 kilometers south of Orange in New South Wales, Australia. The mine Cadia Hill mine of the company Newcrest Mining, in 1998 its production and the underground mining the Ridgeway Mine in April 2002.

Geology

The copper mines are located in volcanic rocks and sediments from the late Ordovician. In the ore there is a porphyry copper deposit. It was founded as erzhaltiges rocks in the Cadia Hill monzonite intruded.

The area contains six significant mineralized zones, the copper-gold mineralization at Cadia Hill, the copper-gold -magnetite deposits in a skarn at Big Cadia and Little Cadia, the Erzmineralisationen in veins and columns at Cadia East and Cadia Quarry and a so-called stockwork mineralization at Cadia Ridge.

The ore deposits of the Cadia Hill mine contains 210 million tonnes of ore with a share of 0.72 grams gold and 0.18 percent copper per ton. End of June 2004 had been extracted 1.4 million ounces ( 44 tonnes ) of gold and 140,000 Tonnes of copper.

The ore of the Ridgeway Mine consists of 41 million tonnes at 2.4 grams and 0.75 percent copper per ton. Gained 3.2 million ounces of gold and 310,000 tonnes of copper.

Operator

The operator of the mines is the Newcrest Mining a mining company, which also operates mines in Australia, the Telfer mine in Western Australia and the Cracow mine in Queensland. Another mine of Newcrest, the Gosowong Mine, located in Indonesia.

After the prolonged drought in Australia in 2007, Newcrest inquired of the Municipality of orange to water supply by municipal water, which was granted. Then later came to a legal dispute, as Newcrest not paid the additional water supplied and it was throbbing, that the city had assured the free shipping during the 1990s. The city responded that the company had expanded mining operations at Cadia East and Ridgeway considerably and thus have changed the business basics.