The Tropicana deposit was discovered in 2005 after AngloGold Ashanti followed up an unexplained gold-in-soil anomaly Independence had recognised in public domain regional data collected in the 1990s.
Discovered in a remote, barely-explored area along an ancient collision zone between the Yilgarn Craton and the Albany-Fraser Province, not previously thought to be prospective for gold, Tropicana is the most significant gold find in Australia for more than a decade.
The Tropicana deposit is comprised of multiple orebodies (Boston Shaker, Tropicana, Havana and Havana South) in a northeast-trending mineralised corridor, approximately 1.2 km wide and 5 km long, that has been tested to a vertical depth of more than 1,200 metres. The deposit is hosted in a quartz-feldspathic gneiss.
The mineralisation is typically found in two zones which are called the hangingwall and footwall lode within the quartz-feldspathic gneiss.
Regional exploration drilling has yielded significant results along Tropicana's northern corridor. Drilling south of the mine at Bushwacker also returned encouraging intercepts.
Drone-based geophysical surveys were also completed to support exploration targeting along the Angel Eyes-Double Vision (northern corridor), Madras and Sanpan-Sazerac trends.
