Large gold-laden chunks of quartz found in remote Western Australia

Miners retrieved the gold-laden quartz from an underground mine at Kambalda in the Goldfields region east of Kalgoorlie - once the scene of one of Australia’s biggest gold rushes.

The immediate find is valued at $15 million, but the company believes there is more to come in the rich vein running underground.

The large stones will likely be sold in their entirety as they earn more as complete stones because of their unique quality.

The gold encases many parts of the quartz - an extremely rare find these days.

The Canadian based RNC miner said over the past week it had at its  Beta Hunt Mine, mined  approximately 9,250 ounces of high grade gold from a 44 m3 cut (130 tonnes) on 15 level at the Beta Hunt Mine (equal to over 70 ounces/tonne or 2,200 grams/tonne).

“The high grade gold (coarse gold and large gold-containing specimen stones) includes approximately 190 kg of specimen stone, the largest of which is 95 kg with an estimated gold content of 2,440 ounces and a second large specimen stone of 63kg with an estimated gold content of 1,620 ounces,” the company said.

“Final ounces will be determined once the coarse gold is processed and/or sold over the next week which is expected to yield approximately $C15 million in cash. All of the high grade coarse gold is hand picked, direct ship ore and immediately sent from site directly to the Perth Mint.

"Recovering 9,250 ounces of high grade coarse gold from a single cut on the 15 level at our Beta Hunt mine, including specimens which could rank among the largest ever discovered, underlines the importance of this discovery.

“Just 8 weeks earlier, at the end of June 2018, 1,500 ounces of high grade gold were recovered from other sediment structures on the 14 and 15 levels. These discoveries highlight the high-grade gold potential of Beta Hunt." said Mark Selby, President and CEO of RNC.

RNC is the first owner of the Beta Hunt Mine to focus on drilling deeper in the Lunnon Basalt in its search for gold, and therefore the first owner to discover and mine gold from newly discovered coarse gold located entirely within the Lunnon Basalt.  

The company said based on diamond drilling and underground mapping, there are two or more Lunnon sediment bands - so the likelihood of finding more gold is very high.