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
