The Conversation (0)
Emerging gold producer and exploration company Great Divide Mining Ltd (the Company or GDM) (ASX:GDM), is pleased to announce the completion of a second LiDAR interpretation over EPM 26135 Kilkivan, Devil’s Mountain Gold Project, SE Queensland.
Highlights:
- GDM purchased the Gympie 2023 LiDAR dataset from the QLD Government, totalling 80 km2, covering EPM 26135, which lies directly SE of the historical gold mining town of Kilkivan.
- A comprehensive LiDAR interpretation was undertaken by specialists GeoCloud Analytics. The interpretation indicated a total of 486 potential historical mine workings, including 40 adits, 16 shafts and 430 other prospecting pits. Many of the old workings were not previously known to GDM.
- The new LiDAR results, combined with previous exploration data has significantly enhanced GDM's dataset, used to identify and prioritise gold bearing targets for further follow-up exploration work.
Chief Executive Officer, Justin Haines, commented:
“This second LiDAR dataset for Devils Mountain has allowed GDM to get a more accurate picture of all of the historical gold mining at Kilkivan prospects area. Shafts and adits are good indicators of the presence of significant gold and base metal mineralisation, because of the effort invested in producing those old excavations. The LiDAR results confirm GDM’s strategy of targeting areas of abundant historical workings and applying modern exploration technologies to those targets”.
Devils Mountain Project
GDM’s Devils Mountain Project comprises 5 x EPMs (17685, 26062, 26135, 26709, 28438) located ~30 km northwest of Gympie (see Figure 1). The Project lies in the Palaeozoic Gympie and Wandilla Provinces of the New England Orogen in southeast Queensland.
Devils Mountain is highly prospective for gold and is host to an abundance of mineral occurrences. In addition to gold, the area contains occurrences of copper, silver, lead, zinc, tungsten and mercury, as well as a number of manganese deposits (see Figure 2). It’s geological setting has many similarities to the nearby Gympie goldfield.
Figure 1: Devils Mountain Gold Project Location Map
Figure 2: Devils Mountain Project Geology and known historical mining prospects
LiDAR Survey Data
LiDAR specialists GeoCloud Analytics purchased part of the Gympie 2023 LiDAR dataset from the QLD Government on behalf of GDM, over an 80 km2 area in the western part of the Devils Mountain Project, covering EPM 26135. The resolution of the raw data is 1 m. GeoCloud Analytics reprocessed the point cloud data to yield a 50cm resolution bare earth Digital Terrain Model (DTM).
The LiDAR survey was flown in 2023 with a minimum average density of 10.5 points per square metre with an average flying height of 1933m above ground level. Details of the survey are provided in the JORC Table 1, see Appendix 1.
A number of new LiDAR images were generated by GeoCloud Analytics in order to extract more information about the project. The enhanced 3D datasets and 2D images produced have facilitated detailed interpretations, allowing the identification of historical mine workings, prospecting pits, geological structures, access tracks and other surface features such as drill pads.
Click here for the full ASX Release
This article includes content from Great Divide Mining, licensed for the purpose of publishing on Investing News Australia. This article does not constitute financial product advice. It is your responsibility to perform proper due diligence before acting upon any information provided here. Please refer to our full disclaimer here.
OPINION — Goldenomics 104: Trump’s Tariffs and Gold
By Darren Brady Nelson
One of former President Ronald Reagan’s most famous quotes is “trust, but verify.” He made that remark on December 8, 1987, to then-Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev as the audience gathered on that historic day for a nuclear arms treaty.
In the wake of US President Donald Trump’s April “Liberation Day” tariffs, it is time once again to “trust, but verify.” That is, that the economy is still on track for a new “golden age of America.” And that we will continue in a “golden age,” pun intended, for investing in gold.
Source: the White House.
Tariffs are not inflation
Trump’s tariffs have added to uncertainty, but they are not inflationary per se. The famous Nobel Prize-winning monetary economist, Milton Friedman, summarized what he had learned from the most comprehensive empirical study ever undertaken on inflation in the following quote:
“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output. A steady rate of monetary growth at a moderate level [may allow] little inflation and much growth.”
Another monetary economist of the 20th century, but not quite as famous as Friedman, was Ludwig von Mises. He agreed with the first half of the quote above, but not the second. He also supported a gold standard, as seen below, as protection from inflation and accompanying boom-bust cycles:
“All economic activity is based upon an uncertain future. It is therefore bound up with risk.” Thus: “There is no such thing as a safe investment.” But: “The…gold standard alone is a truly effective check on the power of the government to inflate the currency.”
Tariffs are just taxes
A student of Mises was Murray Rothbard. The latter wrote in Power and Market that the burden of a sales tax falls entirely on the supplier and supply chain, not the consumers, yet tariffs inexplicably do the opposite. The former is closer to the truth, depending on elasticities.
Media pundits often claim that businesses pass forward tax increases, like tariffs, to consumers. This is a half-truth. The other half of this half-truth is that businesses take a hit, so that they invest and hire less. This means foreign businesses, more than American consumers.
And rather than just a 50/50 split between supply and demand, as per the graph below, economics and history show it is more like an 80/20 situation. That 80 includes a pass backward in the supply chain. This means foreign supply chains, more than American supply chains.
Source: SlidePlayer.
Rationale for Trump’s tariffs
Trump’s tariffs have created extra uncertainty, but not nearly as much as the neoliberals, on the left or right, would suggest by their outrage and alarm. Firstly, imports and import elasticities are relatively low in the US.
Secondly, Trump’s strategy is consistent with the same three exceptions to free trade, and in the same order, as did the classical liberal, and godfather of free trade economics, Adam Smith.
The first exception is not only about directly decoupling from communist China, for targeted defense purposes, but also indirectly, for broader strategic purposes, by weakening the Communist Party of China to the point of regime change, as Reagan did to the USSR.
The second and third exceptions, of reciprocity and retaliation, are part of the “art of the deal.” This three-pronged strategy, despite the outcry as being anti-free trade, is not only trying to put America first, but also to restore genuine free trade. It is a well-calculated risk.
Impact of these tariffs
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in its press release of July 17: “Import prices ticked up 0.1% in June, following a decrease of 0.4% in May, and an advance of 0.1% in April.”
The BLS added that: “Prices for US imports fell 0.2% from June 2024 to June 2025, matching the 12- month decline for the year ended May 2025. Those were the largest annual decreases since the index fell 0.9% for the year ended February 2024.”
The BLS also provided an interactive chart of the Import Price Index (IPI). Highlights from the Trump 47 era for “all imports” include: IPI increased, but at a declining rate, by 1.7 percent in February, 0.8 percent in March and 0.1 percent in April; then decreased by -0.2 percent in May and -0.2 percent in June.
“Consumer goods” are also illuminating: IPI dropped from 1.2 percent in November 2024 to -0.8 percent in March 2025; then sunk further to -1.2 percent in May before rising to -0.6 percent in June, but still negative.
The story with “industrial supplies and materials” was that: IPI grew at 5.7 percent in February, then plunged to 1.9 percent in March; followed by shrinking down into negative territory of -2 percent in April, -3.6 percent in May and -3.2 percent in June.
Source: BLS.
Conclusion
Many Main Street investors, and even those on Wall Street, are aware that gold is a great hedge against both inflation and uncertainty; and it is. But few on either streets also know that it is a great investment that outperforms the S&P Index; and it does.
Gold is very rare indeed, and not just in terms of its physical scarcity, but in its unique ability to be both a safe-haven investment and a performance investment as well. The two charts at the end demonstrate gold’s protection and gold’s growth over the decades.
Therefore, for American investors it is still the right time to “trust” in gold growth to come, “but verify” through gold protection in the meantime. Thus, when one has gold, “heads” you win and “tails” you don’t lose.
About Darren Brady Nelson
Darren Brady Nelson is chief economist with Fisher Liberty Gold and policy advisor to The Heartland Institute. He previously was economic advisor to Australian Senator Malcolm Roberts. He authored the Ten Principles of Regulation and Reform, and the CPI-X approach to budget cuts.
Read the rest of the series: Goldenomics 101: Follow the Money, Goldenomics 102: The Shadow Price of Gold, Goldenomics 103: Gold Protects and Performs.
Alice Queen: Exploring High-grade Epithermal Gold with Near-term Production Potential
Alice Queen (ASX:AQX) is a gold exploration company focused on district-scale discoveries and near-term production opportunities. Its flagship asset is the Viani Gold Project in Fiji, where early drilling indicates a major epithermal gold system, comparable to other systems along the Pacific Ring of Fire. Fiji itself hosts the 10 Moz Vatukoula Gold Mine, underscoring the region’s proven prospectivity. With a portfolio spanning both the Pacific Ring of Fire and Australia’s most prolific gold belts, Alice Queen combines strong geological potential with strategic access to capital.
The company’s secondary asset, Horn Island, hosts over half a million ounces of gold in a JORC-compliant resource. A 2021 scoping study indicated an NPV of more than AU$500 million, based on an internal update using AU$5,000/oz gold. Ongoing discussions with development partners aim to unlock value from this project, which has the potential to generate over AU$800 million in free cash flow across an eight-year mine life.
Alice Queen’s shareholder base is anchored by Gage Resource Development (51 percent) and supported by significant, well-funded Australian investors with a long-term outlook. The company is advancing a balanced strategy focused on drilling success, strategic partnerships, and asset-level monetization.
Company Highlights
- High-impact Discovery at Viani in Fiji: Drilling at the Viani project has confirmed a significant low-sulphidation epithermal gold system with mineralization over a ~5 km strike, with assay results from recent drilling expected imminently.
- Established Gold Resource at Horn Island: The Horn Island project hosts a 524,000 oz JORC-compliant gold resource and is being advanced through potential development partnerships, offering near-term monetization opportunities.
- Strategic Financial Backing: Backed by major shareholder Gage Resource Development, a subsidiary of Beijing-based Gage Capital (US$1.6 billion AUM), ensuring access to growth capital and long-term support.
- Exceptional Leadership: Led by a highly experienced management team with a successful track record in global business and resource development.
This Alice Queen Limited profile is part of a paid investor education campaign.*
Click here to connect with Alice Queen (ASX:AQX) to receive an Investor Presentation
