Big River The Big River exploration permit (60448) is located ~15 kms southeast of Reefton. The mineralisation at Big River is associated with the Sunderland Anticline that extends for at least 5kms through Big River North, the historic Big River mine and St George. The Big River mine produced 136koz at 34.1g/t Au, and the mineralised zone lies 4kms to the east of the famous Blackwater mine, that produced 740koz at 14.2g/t Au. The Big River mine closed in 1942 due to a shortage of labour duringWW2 and Blackwater closed in 1951 when the shaft collapsed and the mine flooded. Federation Mining Limited is currently developing a 3.3km decline to intercept the Birthday Reef 750m below the surface where the Blackwater mine ended in 1951, and plan to extract an additional 700koz of gold. Mapping and Sampling The historic Big River mine workings have been modelled in 3D, and this, coupled with historic mine reports, shows that four main ore shoots were mined around the main Sunderland Anticline. A second anticline (A2) located 150m to the west is associated with anomalous gold and arsenic soil geochemistry. Mapping and channel sampling of the A2 anticline has identified outcropping quartz reef up to 1m thick surrounded by sulphide rich sediments which contain lenses of massive sulphide in the footwall. Channel sampling shows that the quartz reef at surface is relatively low grade, but the footwall mineralisation assayed up to 11g/t Au. The 1942 map by Gage shows the Prima Donna reef approximately ~200m east of Big River mine (Figure 9). The Prima Donna was reported as “a large lode carrying some gold and encouraged the company to commence forming track to the outcrop with the view of prospecting it at depth, but this has been discontinued”. The A2, Big River Mine and the Prima Donna combined cover a strike of around 500m, which is overlaid by anomalous gold and arsenic soil geochemistry (Figure 9). Directors’ Report for the year ended 31 December 2022 Siren Gold Limited 14
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