Warrior Gold Mine (Warrior Menzies), Menzies, Menzies Shire, Western Australia, Australia
| Latitude & Longitude (WGS84): | 29° 43' 6'' South , 121° 1' 53'' East |
|---|---|
| Latitude & Longitude (decimal): | -29.71843,121.03147 |
| GeoHash: | G#: qdwnfjumt |
| Locality type: | Mine |
| KΓΆppen climate type: | BWh : Hot deserts climate |
The Warrior Gold mine is a historic mine about two kilometres south of Menzies, with the Lady Harriet open pit adjoining to the south, and the Golden Age, Little Wonder and Maori Chief mines to the north-east. It is just west of the track connecting the Lady Shenton and Lady Harriet open pits.
This mine was perennially under-developed, and gold probably still remains underground. The mine was developed by Adelaide based Warrior Menzies Gold Mining Company. The main shaft was called Campbell's. H. Carr was mine manager. The generally held view at the time, was the company was short of shareholder capital. Little in the way of plant and machinery was erected, progress was slow, and gold was left for want of money to get to it. The company operated the mine from 1896 until it was liquidated at the end of 1902. The syndicate produced 1300 tonnes of ore for 1112 ounces of gold.
The mine was sold at auction to pay creditors. Patrick Keenan purchased the mine on 27 February 1903. While Keenan had the best intentions and operated the mine for the next eleven years, he was essentially a prospector employing half a dozen men, and did not have the capital for systematic development. 18 or 22 acres.
Several sources state the lease contained three parallel north-south trending lodes all with gold, although a later source states there were six lodes on the property. During Keenan's time the mine produced 6968 tonnes of ore yielding 5761 ounces of gold, for 23 953 pounds money-wise in early Twentieth Century figures. The mine was worked to a depth of 160 feet.
From 1912 to 1914, mining virtually ceased due to Keenan's ill health. It may have been the long term effects of an accident in August 1909. Keenan had made enough from the mine to purchase car, a luxury item in those days. Driving home one night he ran off the road into a stump, and the car rolled, badly injuring Keenan.
Keenan was looking at selling the mine in 1914, and retire back east, although little activity was found until the early 1930's. Its noted in 1927, the lease is owned by the Sawyer brothers, six in total, who for twenty years had worked together prospecting, and owned a battery locally. H. Farari was tributing at the mine in the early 1930's, although the Sawyers still owned it. They sold it to a company floated in Adelaide in 1935 called the Warrior Menzies Gold Mining Company, who held the Warrior and nearby Wallaroo leases. A five head battery was erected. Little mining took place, bringing the history of the mine full circle.
From 1898 to 1944 the mine produced 12 300 tonnes of ore at 18 g/t yielding 7020 ounces of gold. It is a south-west plunging lode, hosted within amphibolite rocks, and consists of several small pods of quartz veining up to 2 metres thick, with a small envelope. Pyrite and arsenopyrite are dominant with some chalcopyrite, galena and sphalerite.
Commodity List
This is a list of exploitable or exploited mineral commodities recorded at this locality.Mineral List
7 valid minerals.
Rock Types Recorded
Select Rock List Type
Alphabetical List Tree DiagramRegional 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: 784939 | amphibolite 74334 Age: Archean (2500 - 4000 Ma) Description: Amphibolite, mafic schist, mafic rock intercalated with granite, para-amphibolite; metabasalt, metagabbro, metapyroxenite and metadolerite; Youanmi Terrane Comments: meta-igneous mafic; synthesis of multiple published descriptions Lithology: Meta-igneous mafic 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: 3187518 | Archean volcanic rocks Age: Archean (2500 - 3200 Ma) Comments: Yilgarn Craton Lithology: Greenstone belt; mafic-ultramafic volcanic 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
