Trident

The Trident ñ Higginsville gold mine, in the Eastern Goldfields 125 kilometres south of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, is located between the rich Norseman and St Ives gold prospecting areas where many gold bearing ore deposits had been mined from the surface but few to any real depth.

Increased Gold Reserves Continually Being Discovered at the Trident- Higginsville Mine
Trident-Higginsville mine owner, Alacer Gold Corporation, have consistently claimed that with aggressive exploration at depth the gold reserve at their Higginsville Gold Operation, where the Trident Mine is situated, will extend far beyond their known reserves. This belief has proven to be true for as at December 2012, the proven and probable reserve still stood at 6.9 million tonnes of ore grading at 3.7 grams a tonne, an amount that would return 0.83 million ounces. At the same time the measured and indicated resources at the mine was 11.6 million tonnes grading at 3.4 grams a tonne that would deliver 1.26 million ounces.

Trident-Higginsville Mine Owned by Canadian Mining Company Alacer Gold Corporation
The Trident ñ Higginsville Mine is fully owned by Alacer who acquired it when they merged with Avoca Resources in 2011. The Trident deposit, which is the largest ore body in the entire Higginsville Gold Operation, was discovered by Avoca in 2004 and they began mining the deposit in 2007. The Higginsville Gold Operation consists of orogenic gold deposits that are structurally controlled. It occurs in the Archaean Norseman-Wiluna Greenstone belt that is a part of the wider Yilgarn Craton. The Trident- Higginsville mine is sited 200 metres north of the underground mine associated with the mined out Poseidon South open pit.

Nine Zones Being Mined at the Trident-Higginsville Mine
Mining the Trident-Higginsville underground deposit is carried out with mechanised sub-level open stoping. The stopes, once created, are backfilled with paste (rock and cement) to make certain maximum recovery can be obtained without the need to leave pillars. The mine contains nine ore zones, these being; East Vein, Poseidon, Eastern Zone, Western Zone, EOS, Athena, Apollo, Helios, and Artemis.

Processing Plant Capable of Processing 1.2 Million Tonnes of ore Annually
The gold processing plant at the Higginsville operation is a conventional crushing, grinding type of plant that incorporates a gravity and carbon-in- leach (CIL) circuit capable of processing 1.2 million tonnes of ore a year. It currently treats gold bearing ore from the Trident and Chalice underground mines. Both part of the greater Higginsville Gold Operation. In 2012 the plant produced 136,687 ounces at a cost of $1,159 an ounce.

The Higginsville gold processing plant, that was initially limited to processing one million tonnes of ore a year is part of the infrastructure built to mine the Higginsville Gold Operation that also includes the following:
- A fibre optic communication cable to Perth
- Electric and light vehicle workshop
- Mining workshops
- A 100 MW power station
- A 1.5 GL borefield
- A 200 person village
- Services, buildings and other site infrastructure

Trident-Higginsville Milestones
Other notable milestones achieved since the commissioning of the Trident underground mine include:
- Underground development getting underway with 15,120 tonnes of ore grading at 3.1 grams a tonne that produced 1,507 ounces to the end the December quarter of 2007.
- ACM Pty Ltd being awarded the underground mining contract.
- GRES Pty Ltd being awarded the contract to built the Processing Plant.
- First gold pour on July 1, 2008

Goldfields Mining Services (GMS) currently services the Trident- Higginsville Mine by the way of providing the mine superintendent, drill and blast foreman, senior mining engineer and engineering services.
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