The search will cover a 500km-long area from low tide to 120 metres deep just offshore from the West Coast goldfields where over eight million ounces of placer gold has been recovered from rivers and beaches since the nineteenth century gold rushes.
Two gold and mineral prospecting titles, one of which goes beyond the 12 nautical mile territorial limit, have been issued to Seafield Resources Ltd, a New Zealand-registered company owned by a De Beers-connected holding company in the British Virgin Islands.
The project is the brainchild of John Youngson, a placer gold specialist geologist from Dunedin.
His company Placer Solutions (2004) Ltd approached De Beers Marine, the world’s leading operator in the assessment and recovery of offshore placer deposits, to fund and develop the project.
Youngson said it is likely that glaciers and rivers from the Southern Alps will have carried gold onto the continental shelf during glacial periods when sea levels were as much as 120 m below the present level.
Previous investigations in the 1960s and 1970s were hampered by the lack of a predictive geological model for gold distribution on the shelf and by the technology of the day, the geologist said.
The two prospecting titles, which cover the seabed down to the 120m isobath, would be operated as if they were one, but each comes under separate legislation.
Prospecting permit 39288, under the Crown Minerals Act, covers an area of 8689 square kilometres from Karamea in the north down to Jackson Bay south of the Haast pass, and from the low water mark out to the 12 nautical mile limit.
The other prospecting licence 39291, under the Continental Shelf Act, covers 1490sq.km and contains three separate sections, the largest of which lies northwest of Westport. The second largest section lies off Ross and Hokitika with a third narrow section off Greymouth.
The combined work programmes for the two prospecting titles call for complete programmes of regional and detailed geophysics of a minimum of 1500 km; regional and detailed stratigraphic sampling of over 500 samples; and regional mineralogical sampling of a minimum of 600 samples.
Both titles cover the exclusive rights, not only for gold, but for ilmenite, rutile, platinum group metals, zircon, magnetite and garnet.
Seafield Resources is currently seeking resource consents from the West Coast Regional Council to prospect the area, and is consulting with local communities and local Maori on the project and its implications.
Youngson said that if the consents are granted, Placer Solutions would work with De Beers Marine on the project.
De Beers Marine is the world’s largest marine diamond miner. It is a subsidiary of De Beers, the largest producer and marketer of gem diamonds in the world, which is jointly controlled by Anglo American and Central Holdings, an Oppenheimer family holding company.
De Beers Marine Namibia, which operates as an off shore mining contractor, first mined diamonds from the seabed off Namibia in 1990, and has since increased production to over 500,000 carats a year.
Youngson said that De Beers Marine, in addition to being at the cutting edge of offshore exploration and recovery, has achieved ISO 14001 rating for its outstanding environmental record.
