Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	28° 34' 45'' South , 116° 53' 11'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-28.57918,116.88654
GeoHash:	G#: qdgj7v64j
Locality type:	Mine
Köppen climate type:	BSh : Hot semi-arid (steppe) climate

In the central Messenger's Patch area of the Wadgingarra Gold Field, just east of the Yalgoo-Fields Find Road. It was one of the more substantial mines on the gold field, but its a relative thing, and its initial mining period only lasted a couple of years. GML 548. 12 acre lease.

The controlling interest of the mine was held by Alf Messenger, whom the area is named after. William Roberts is also noted as taking out the lease in March 1908, and both were found working the mine by the Inspector of Mines in June 1910. Gilbert and the White brothers (surnames), described as early Murchison district prospectors are also noted during this time as being part of the ownership. One source states Messenger purchased the lease from J. O'Malley who continued working a neighbouring lease.

In 1908 100 tonnes was at grass awaiting processing, however with the nearest battery was at Boogardie near Mt Magnet. The mines in the area faced difficulties transporting their ore this considerable distance.

The gold was found in a kaolin formation. The Inspector of Mines in 1908 states there is no real walls to the deposit, with 4 feet of rich gold leaders in kaolin. Other sources state the total area, but maybe with lower gold values, was 3 feet wide and 40 feet long. Messenger stated the ore body closely resembled that at the Peak Hill gold mine, north of Meekatharra. He states there were 3 large formations but only one was being worked. Officially, the gold mine yielded a total of 298 ounces from 39 tonnes of ore mined from 1908 to 1910.

During the 1930's gold boom, E. Oliver sunk a new shaft at the mine in 1935. He was pumping water to try and go below the water line at 50 feet. No more is reported.

Commodity List

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

Mineral List

2 valid minerals.

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

Neoarchean - Mesoarchean 2500 - 3200 Ma ID: 3187503

Archean intrusive rocks Age: Archean (2500 - 3200 Ma) Comments: Yilgarn Craton Lithology: Intrusive igneous 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]

Archean 2500 - 4000 Ma ID: 843244

felsic intrusives 74292 Age: Archean (2500 - 4000 Ma) Description: Undifferentiated felsic intrusive rocks, including monzogranite, granodiorite, granite, tonalite, quartz monzonite, syenogranite, diorite, monzodiorite, pegmatite. Locally metamorphosed, foliated, gneissic. Local abundant mafic and ultramafic inclusions Comments: igneous felsic intrusive; igneous intermediate intrusive; synthesis of multiple published descriptions Lithology: Igneous felsic intrusive; igneous intermediate 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]

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

References