Companies are still searching for signs of gold around Ballarat, amid massive investment into the mining sector as the pandemic recedes.
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One company, Ballarat-based Red Rock Resources, is applying for more than 2000 square kilometres of licences to explore across the district, from south of Buninyong to near Kilmore.
Red Rock's Dave Holden said there's plenty of momentum among companies hunting for new leads.
"We're doing all our preliminary work, we're doing historical research, pulling the stories together, and we've started doing the field work," he said.
"The good news is that we've grown, we're up to five staff now, we're doing our bit to hire locally."
The licences are for exploration only, Mr Holden is keen to emphasise, with a completely separate licence and process required for actual mining.
For the moment, the company is focused on surface level soil surveys and studying historic gold mines, though so far the company has deployed a truck-based diamond drill twice.
"The drilling's been taking place south of Buninyong, and near Linton or Skipton, they've been very specific targets for the geology more than anything, and we expect to see some analytical results come back in the next couple of months," Mr Holden said.
"We don't actually do any lasting damage, it's very low impact, very temporary, drilling is come-and-gone within a month for those two projects, the drill holes have been backfilled, cleaned up, you wouldn't know we were there.
"It's really looking at the geology of the rocks, it's the science, not just looking to establish a mine - we're drilling around the old workings to see what the gold was sitting in, if there was gold there, but bearing in mind that just because there's diggings there, it's no guarantee, it might have just been someone having a crack."
Community liaison manager, Kiara Reddingius, said working with the community had also been beneficial for the project.
"We're not here to upset anyone," she said.
"I think once you educate people about what's happening, and you're transparent, most people are fine.
"Heritage-protected areas, regardless of whether we get the licence or not, they're still protected, we can't just go in there because we have the licence.
"We actually are seeking information that is going to be useful so we can manage our actions respectfully and resourcefully."
According to the state government's Minerals Sector Snapshot released this week, statistics from the ABS show total statewide mineral exploration expenditure rose by over a third increasing to $183.4 million in 2020-21.
The latest ABS data also shows October-December 2021 exploration spending up almost 50 per cent compared to the same period in 2020.
Gold continues drive mineral exploration investment in Victoria, with $149 million in exploration expenditure for gold in 2020-21, an increase of 83 per cent from the year before.
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