Established miner Gold Fields is backing Great Southern Mining’s Edinburgh Park project in North Queensland with a $15 million earn-in agreement.

The company is also subscribing for $1 million worth of shares to take a 5.4 per cent stake in Great Southern Mining.

“Great Southern is extremely pleased to have the expertise and funding of Gold Fields to accelerate discoveries at Edinburgh Park,” managing director Matthew Keane said.

“This earn-in validates our belief that the project has potential to host Tier One mineral deposits.”

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Under the agreement, Gold Fields can sole fund up to $15 million exploration expenditure over a six-year period to earn a 75 per cent interest in the project.

Edinburgh Park incorporates nine granted exploration licences and two exploration licence applications covering an area of 1750sq km around the Mount Carlton gold-silver-copper mine about 130km south of Townsville.

It is prospective for large-scale mineralisation styles including gold-copper porphyries, high and low-sulphidation epithermal gold-silver-copper systems and intrusivion-related gold (IRG).

Gold Fields has already identified several targets within Edinburgh Park and drill testing is expected to commence after the northern Queensland wet season in 2024.

Mr Keane said Great Southern Mining regarded Gold Fields as an ideal partner, having a track record of discovering and operating large-scale porphyry, epithermal and IRG deposits.

Gold Fields has racked up discoveries including the high-grade gold-silver Salares Norte deposit in Chile.

It has a suite of gold operations in Western Australia and Ghana, including St Ives, Agnew, Granny Smith, Gruyere and Damang, as well as porphyry copper-gold operations in Peru (Cerro Corona).