The open day featured talks from Peter Sherlock, Montaeth and Powys, on the task of identifying the mine sites from a recently uncovered 1856 survey and Arthur Love, Coffey Geosciences, spoke on the use of ground penetrating radar and the planned drilling programme. University of Newcastle geologist Robin Offler spoke about the formation of coal and the nature of the site's geology.

Drilling to locate voids and use boreholes to determine the condition of the 1804 mines will begin this month. The Working Party is still waiting on final Commonwealth Government approval.

Principal engineer Arthur Love said they planned to drill some shallow holes vertically, at the southern drift, through the road surface to identify the anomaly and then drill an angled hole down through the concrete retaining wall to intersect the coal seam and hopefully the mine.

“It's a great story with the surveyors using an old survey map, recent high quality aerial photographs and the latest GPS technology to locate the first coal mines in the southern hemisphere dating back more than 200 years,” said Love.

Montaeth and Powys and Coffey Geosciences have aided the Working Party by lending their expertise and the Newcastle City Council has contributed $10,000 to the work.