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Prince Lyell Mine, Mount Lyell Mines, Queenstown district, Tasmania, Australia

Chalcopyrite
Prince Lyell Mine, Mount Lyell Mines, Queenstown district, Tasmania, Australia

Photo: R. Bottrill 2006
A large, operating, mostly underground copper-gold-silver mine. The deposit is a volcanogenic deposit with disseminated sulphides hosted by altered Cambrian acid volcanics. The Mt Lyell mine is one of the oldest significant mines in Australia, and has been operating almost continually for nearly 120 years. Over twenty separate deposits have been worked but the Prince Lyell deposit is the only currently active mine. The mines have produced about 1.4 Mt of copper, 45 t of gold 733 t of silver and some lead and zinc from about 120 Mt of ore in its lifetime (to 2002) and, depending on good copper prices, there are sufficient reserves to enable the mine continuing for another fifty years or more

The Mt Lyell copper-gold mines are mineralogically most important as the co-type locality for the rare copper-iron-tin sulphide mawsonite, named after Sir Douglas Mawson, the Antarctic explorer and geologist. However, many other rare minerals are also recorded from these mines, including betechtinite, florenceite, woodhousite, stannoidite, hessite, jalpaite, magnesiofoitite, zunyite and stromeyerite. At least 85 species have been reported from the mines, many being found as attractive specimens in late stage, alpine-type veins.
REF:
Hills, P.B., 1990: Mount Lyell copper-gold-silver deposits. In: Hughes, F.E., (ed.) 1990: Geology of the mineral deposits of Australia and Papua New Guinea. Monog. 16. Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Melbourne. 1257-1267.


R. Bottrill & P. Olubas (submitted) The Mt. Lyell Mines. Australian Jnl. Mineralogy

Mineral List

Acanthite
Aikinite
Albite
Alunite
Anatase
Anhydrite
Ankerite
Arsenopyrite
Baryte
'Bastnäsite'
Berzelianite
Betekhtinite
Biotite
Boothite
Bornite
Bournonite
Calaverite
Calcite
Chalcanthite
Chalcocite
Chalcopyrite
Chamosite
Clausthalite
Clinochlore
Clinozoisite
Copper
Covellite
Cubanite
Cuprite
Delafossite
Dickite
Digenite
Djurleite
Dolomite
Enargite
Florencite-(Ce)
Fluorapatite
Fluorite
Galena
Goethite
Gold
Gorceixite
Gypsum
Hematite
Hessite
Illite
Jalpaite
Jarosite
Kaolinite
Linnaeite
Magnesiofoitite
Magnetite
Malachite
Mawsonite
Molybdenite
Monazite-(Ce)
Muscovite
Natroalunite
Paragonite
Pentlandite
Petzite
Pyrite
Pyrophyllite
Pyrrhotite
Quartz
Renierite
Rutile
Siderite
Silver
Sphalerite
Stannoidite
Stromeyerite
Svanbergite
Tellurobismuthite
Tennantite
Tenorite
Tetrahedrite
Topaz
Uraninite
Variscite
Vivianite
Wittichenite
Woodhouseite
Zircon
Zunyite


85 entries listed. 83 valid minerals.

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Copyright © Jolyon Ralph and Ida Chau 1993-2013. Site Map. Locality, mineral & photograph data are the copyright of the individuals who submitted them. Further information contact the Site hosted & developed by Jolyon Ralph. Mindat.org is an online information resource dedicated to providing free mineralogical information to all. Mindat relies on the contributions of hundreds of members and supporters. Mindat does not offer minerals for sale. If you would like to add information to improve the quality of our database, then click here to register.
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