Taylors Arm Antimony Project
The Taylors Arm Project includes Swallows Nest, Munga Creek, and Testers Mines, which have recently produced antimony. The latter features massive stibnite veins grading up to 63% Sb -Australia’s highest-recorded antimony grade. The project contains one granted tenement and one exploration application in the New England Orogen in northern NSW.
The granted title (EL 9668) covers 87 historical workings in six mineral camps, including Taylors Arm, from which the project is named, Munga Creek, Toorooka, Pinnacles, Mistake Creek and Purgatory. Many of these camps report high-grade breccia material (with grades exceeding 25% Sb). The widespread occurrence of stibnite (Sb2S3), the principal ore for antimony, indicates the geology is prospective for primary stibnite mineralisation or polymetallic ore or gold-antimony association such as Hillgrove.
(Image: Taylors Arm tenements with historical mineral occurrences and geology)
Trigg also acquired Taylors Arm East (ELA 6802), which added 16 additional workings, including key historical sites such as Bull Creek Mine and O’Donnell’s Reef. Bull Creek Mine reported extremely high-grade antimony mineralisation, with recent rock samples revealing grades of 57.9% Sb and 16.4% Sb, while O’Donnell’s Reef has yielded 6.5% Sb.
Additionally, the Tewinga Silver Mine within the project produced 3,471 oz of silver from a 23.5t bulk sample, with a silver grade of 147.7 oz/t (4116 g/t Ag). This highlights the project’s significant potential for gold and silver mineralisation, with assay results of up to 24 g/t gold and 840 g/t silver across the Taylors Arm portfolio.
Host rocks for the quartz-stibnite breccia veins are predominantly Permian-aged metasediments of the Nambucca Beds in the north and Kempsey Beds in the south.
The Munga Creek Mine last operated in 1974, producing more than 1,100t of antimony concentrates.
The Swallow Creek Mine extracted antimony from 1940 to 1955 at a concentration of 40% Sb and returned 30% Sb on reopening in 1972.
The Purgatory Mine produced 1229t at a grade of 42.27% Sb between 1935 and 1954.
The Taylors Arm project saw antimony production during two crucial periods: World War II and the early 1970s. This production yielded economically significant grades of the metal.
Despite the widespread nature of these antimony occurrences, exploration efforts have mainly focused on these previously identified zones. There has been no modern, systematic exploration since at least the 1990s. Trigg aims to broaden its scope by exploring the potential for larger-scale deposits across one or more of these occurrences. The goal is to unlock further economic value from this historically productive region.
With an expanded Taylors Arm land package and the inclusion of new high-grade targets like Bull Creek and Tewinga Silver Mine, Trigg is poised to unlock substantial value from this strategically important asset.