Shangri La Mine, Kununurra, Wyndham-East Kimberley Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Shangri La Mine	Mine
Kununurra	- not defined -
Wyndham-East Kimberley Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

Located 18 kilometres west of Kununurra and just north of the main highway.

It is a small polymetallic hydrothermal quartz vein type deposit with a wide range of species in the oxidised zone.

Discovered in 1962 by Kununurra prospector Peter Costeo, who kept the discovery a secret until he pegged the lease in 1966. From 1968 to 1972 the deposit was mined by Conwest Australia, Acmex, Acmin and Geotechnics from two open cuts and several pits and trenches. Recent pictures show wide shallow overgrown pits.

The reference indicates its ease of access from the highway means it has been a popular fossicking site. After the mining companies had left Peter Costeo sold specimens to tourists in the late 1970's to at least 1983. Pictures show tables straining under the weight of specimens. The mystery is why these specimens are not seen in circulation today. The horrible thought is they were sold to tourists who held them in little value later and were thrown out. The Western Australian Museum conducted a collecting trip to the site in 2009, and more material is held by them in the Simpson and Gartrell collections.

Apart from the Shangri-La Mine there is also the Silver Hills prospect to south-west and Donkey Hills prospect to the west. The deposits are hosted by the Proterozoic Hart Dolerite, which is a massive composite sill of tholeiitic dolerite and associated granophyre. At Shangri-La there are six en echelon mineralised quartz veins associated with a north-east trending axis of an anticline. The quartz veins trend north and north-west over a strike length of up to 300 metres, dipping 10-30 degrees north, containing primary and supergene sulphides.

Galena, sphalerite, chalcopyrite, bornite and tetrahedrite are the most common species at the mine as disseminations or irregular bands and patches within the quartz. The most abundant mineral assemblage is cerussite, bindheimite, malachite-linarite-chalcocite or associated copper sulphides. Other assemblages found are rosasite, hemimorphite, otavite, smithsonite and cerussite; or mottramite-descloizite-vanadinite; or alunite-supergroup minerals. It is the third reported occurence in Australia of otavite.

The reference describes various species which encrust mainly quartz and bindheimite, sometimes in cavities and bindheimite-malachite boxworks, or form crystals to a few mm. These include acanthite, grey-cream anglesite, very pale blue aurichalcite, dark blue azurite, yellow to olive-green beaverite, blue-green brochantite, common bindheimite, common pale to dark grey cerussite, black coronadite, red-brown goethite and hematite, dark blue linarite, common malachite, green to brown mottramite-descloizite, yellow-green osarizawaite, white otavite, pale to bright blue rosasite, colourless smithsonite, and brown to yellow vanadinite.

Species found but only very minor was grain sized barite, lemon-yellow beudantite as fine grained coatings on quartz. Crusts of calcite on hemimorphite. Chalcocite, digenite, covellite and djurleite as rims on primary sulphides, and as black aborescent growths. Thin films of chrysocolla. Gold grains in bindheimite-malachite boxworks. Dark brown plumbojarosite as thin coatings on quartz. Space does not allow a detailed description of any of the species above.

The reference states the oxidation of the primary sulphide ore at Shangri-La produced an early acid-sulphate regime, at which point alunite sulphates, anglesite, and supergene sulphides formed. This was followed by crystallisation of the carbonate assemblages forming species such as linarite and brochantite. Increasing pH groundwaters formed vanadinite. The oxidation of galena-tetrahedrite formed bindheimite, which is common at the mine.

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References