Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	23° 37' 43'' South , 119° 23' 57'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-23.62874,119.39927
GeoHash:	G#: qeucsfxbs
Locality type:	Deposit
Köppen climate type:	BWh : Hot deserts climate

Iron ore prospect. 40 kilometres south-west of Newman. In the vicinity of the Prairie Downs pastoral station road. The name appears to relate to several companies and projects, although all are about iron ore, and south-west of Newman.

Royal Resources Limited in 2008 states it is drilling for iron ore at its Prairie Downs tenement, 18 kilometres south-west of Newman. In turn the Iron Ridge and Homestead prospects are mentioned, between Western Ridge and Western Creek prospects. This is nearer to Newman than the next company.

Dynasty Resources discovered a significant iron ore deposit in 2010 (map relates to this). This contained a JORC Inferred resource of 1.4 billion tonnes of detrital channel iron ore at a location called Spearhole, and in addition 23.3 Mt in outcropping Marra Mamba Formation.

The first figure is a huge total, but like all things which appear too good to be true, there was a catch. The detrital material was high grade hematite fragments within finer clay and sand. The company stated it planned to process the material, the same way as mineral sands are processed, by separating material by specific gravity. The devil was in the detail as the process does not cope well with clay. The company enlisted the help of the China North Eastern University to investigate the best processing technique. The following year trials were ongoing, but no result was ever forthcoming. Their website in 2016 was still stating they were awaiting results from 2011, and the tenements meanwhile had been sold to another company.

At the same time, a company called Prairie Downs Metals Limited owned a tenement in the middle of the Dynasty leases, and were exploring for iron ore.

In 2016, an application was made by BHP Billiton to explore the area under Prairie Downs but no more details are known. Jindalee Limited had taken over Dynasty's leases, but states it is subject to a competing claim to be decided by ballot. There is also a Prairie Downs base metal deposit at the southern end of the station.

Mineral List

1 valid mineral.

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

Cenozoic 0 - 66 Ma ID: 700642

ferruginous duricrust 38498 Age: Cenozoic (0 - 66 Ma) Description: Ferruginous duricrust, laterite; pisolitic, nodular, vuggy; may include massive to pisolitic ferruginous subsoil, mottled clays, magnesite, reworked products of ferruginous and siliceous duricrusts, calcrete, gossan; residual ferruginous saprolite Comments: regolith; synthesis of multiple published descriptions Lithology: Regolith 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: 3192701

Archean intrusive rocks Age: Archean (2500 - 3200 Ma) Comments: Pilbara 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]

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

References

External Links