Rising tide

Although Canadian based gold mining company, Crocodile Gold Corporation, announced it ceased mining of its open pit operations at its Burnside project in the Northern Territory in 2012, it still plans to go ahead with exploration drilling at its Kazi and Bons Rush higher grade deposits. This is being done in order to increase its reserves of higher grade mineral resources as part of its strategy in developing its long term mine plan for the area.

The Rising Tide Gold Deposit Added to Crocodile Gold's Development Plans
Crocodile Gold Corporation later announced it was adding the Rising Tide gold deposit, a part of the Burnside Project at Pine Creek, to its mine development plan. It was scheduled to commence production at Rising Tide in 2012 as a new open pit, as long as the world gold price remained stable.

The Rising Tide gold deposit is located to the north of the company's Brocks Creek gold mining site that had earlier been mined as an open pit operation for 12 months between 2006 and 2007. Gold ore production at Brocks Creek during that time reached 768,019 tonnes grading at 1.47 grams per tonne of gold, which realised 36,300 ounces of gold.

Between 1993 and 2006 past companies had drilled 565 exploratory holes into the Rising Tide ore body. This exercise clearly defined the size of the deposit leading to the Crocodile Gold Corporation gold resource statement, released at the end of December 2010, showing an indicated resource of 1,259,000 tonnes of mineralised ore grading at 1.4 grams a tonne of gold and an inferred resource of 557,000 tonnes grading at 1.4 grams of gold a tonne.

Rising Tide Gold Deposit Ranked High in Value
During 2010, Crocodile Gold Corporation carried out a thorough review of all its Northern Territory gold resources. This review ranked the Rising Tide deposit as the highest in value among all the company's other Northern Territory gold mining operations. This high ranking was arrived at after taking into account its accessibility by sealed roads, power availability and available infrastructure. A suitable gold price was all that was holding up the development of the Rising Tide mine to that point in time.

Crocodile Gold Corporation currently has three operating gold mines in the Northern Territory and Victoria with combined land packages exceeding 4,000 square kilometres. Gold mineralisation at the Burnside Project has been intersected over a distance of five kilometres along strike of the Cosmos-Chinese corridor. The corridor itself stretches for close to 20 kilometres.

After an early boom period, exploration and mining declined in the Northern Territory during the 1910's. It remained in the doldrums for the next 60 years apart from minor works being carried out every now and again. The area around Howley was explored for base metal and gold between 1970 and 1980 resulting in some small alluvial showings being mined from 1986 to 1990.

In 2007 GBS Gold drilled in the Burnside Gold Project area where the Rising Tide deposit is located. This resulted with gold being mined in the Howley open pits. GBS Gold also undertook a feasibility study into underground mining of the Cosmo deposit nearby but went into administration before any formal mining of the orebody began. Cosmo is now the leading gold mine that Crocodile Gold Corporation operates in the Northern Territory.
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