History of the Site | Mount Todd

The Batman deposit is part of a goldfield that was worked from early in the twentieth century. Gold and tin were discovered in the Mt Todd area in 1889 and most deposits were worked in the period from 1902 to 1914.

In the 1950s the area was explored for uranium without any economic success and mining leases were granted in 1975 for exploration for a variety of commodities.

From the late 1980s the mine was operated by a number of companies with varying degrees of success with the most recent operator closing due to bankruptcy. The causes of the failure of the previous operation include: low gold prices, higher than expected operating costs, lower than expected metallurgical recoveries and lower than expected processing rates. Vista Gold has dedicated much of its effort in the past five years to gaining a better understanding of the deposit and mineralisation in the Batman deposit and evaluating metallurgical processing alternatives. The company believes it has adequately addressed all of the technical issues that caused problems for the previous operators.