Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	31° 31' 36'' South , 121° 34' 12'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-31.52677,121.57026
GeoHash:	G#: qdqkwksz2
Locality type:	Mine
Köppen climate type:	BSk : Cold semi-arid (steppe) climate

The Mount Gold Mine is 5 kilometres south-west of Widgiemooltha, at the top of a hill.

An Adelaide syndicate developed the mine but abandoned it in 1897 after the workings became flooded. Various prospectors are said to have tried their luck with the mine for the next 20 years, but the sulphide lode was not amenable to processing at the time. At one point the mine was taken over by rich Welsh interests, but problems with their coal mines back in Britain led to operations ceasing, and the mine was idle for many years.

In 1935, an American syndicate, led by local Morton Webber, took over the mine and spent at least 10 000 pounds un-watering the shafts and exploring the deposit. On the 27 May 1935, Raymond D. Brown was overcome by fumes in the mine. He was with another man called Gilbert, when they came across fumes in the underground workings left over from shot the day before. They attempted to climb out, but Brown was overcome within 50 feet of the surface, and fell to the bottom of the shaft and died. The syndicate immediately commandeered a plane and flew a doctor out from Kalgoorlie, but it was too late.

From at least 1941 to 1949 the mine was owned by Ossie Saunders. He had the mine under option in 1946 to the Australian Finance and Mining Corporation, and in 1949 to Western Mining Corporation.

Underground mining took place in the 1980's and 1990's, mainly from Level 2, 35 metres below the surface, with production averaging 9 g/t.

The workings and lodes were mapped in 2004 by Dean Goodwin. They showed several historic workings including shafts and trenches as well as two larger pits at the northern end called Goodwin and Vicks. Several lodes run across the property in a north-west to south-east direction, the most important named Main, German, and No 1 West.

A geological study was conducted on the deposit in 2012. In the Goodwin Pit, gold is associated with chalcopyrite. They uncovered an east-west trending Cu anomaly, abundant tourmaline, Cu, Pd, Zn and Ag values, and rare earths Ce and Nd highest near the best gold values at the top of the hill. Gold is found in a series of sub-vertical quartz veins and is associated with boron metasomatism, hosted in mafic and ultramafic rocks.

The old workings have been partially altered by activity in 2013. Focus Minerals conducted a 4 month mining trial on the German Lode, processing the ore at its Three Mile Hill plant at Coolgardie. It abandoned further attempts to develop the deposit citing low gold prices and high costs.

In 2010, it was estimated the mine had an inferred resource of 2.2 million tonnes of ore at 5.5 g/t yielding 314 000 ounces.

Commodity List

This is a list of exploitable or exploited mineral commodities recorded at this locality.

Mineral List

4 valid minerals.

Rock Types Recorded

Regional Geology

This geological map and associated information on rock units at or nearby to the coordinates given for this locality is based on relatively small scale geological maps provided by various national Geological Surveys. This does not necessarily represent the complete geology at this locality but it gives a background for the region in which it is found.

Click on geological units on the map for more information. Click here to view full-screen map on Macrostrat.org

Archean 2500 - 4000 Ma ID: 792604

mafic extrusive rocks 74248 Age: Archean (2500 - 4000 Ma) Description: Basalt, high-Mg basalt, minor mafic intrusive rocks; some andesite; agglomerate; mafic schist; amphibolite; dolerite; komatiitic basalt; carbonated basalt; basaltic andesite; mafic rock interleaved with minor granitic rock Comments: igneous mafic volcanic; igneous mafic intrusive; synthesis of multiple published descriptions Lithology: Igneous mafic volcanic; igneous mafic intrusive Reference: Raymond, O.L., Liu, S., Gallagher, R., Zhang, W., Highet, L.M. Surface Geology of Australia 1:1 million scale dataset 2012 edition. Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia). [5]

Neoarchean - Mesoarchean 2500 - 3200 Ma ID: 3189181

Archean sedimentary rocks Age: Archean (2500 - 3200 Ma) Comments: Yilgarn Craton Lithology: Sedimentary rocks Reference: Chorlton, L.B. Generalized geology of the world: bedrock domains and major faults in GIS format: a small-scale world geology map with an extended geological attribute database. doi: 10.4095/223767. Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 5529. [154]

Data and map coding provided by Macrostrat.org, used under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License

References

External Links