Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	23° 52' 7'' South , 115° 44' 46'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-23.86887,115.74627
GeoHash:	G#: qef21ygcg
Locality type:	Mine
Köppen climate type:	BWh : Hot deserts climate

The mine can be reached by heading east of the Mangaroon Homestead, along the Ullawarra-Cobra Gifford Creek Road, then heading north along a track, which turns west just before the mine. Approximately 15 kilometres north-east of the homestead. Several buildings, large rusting tanks, processing equipment remains at the site.

The mine is approximately 1.6kms south of the Mangaroon Pb workings.

Discovered by Allan McDonald in 1956, who was the local pastoralist on the Mangaroon Station. The assayer wrote on the bottom of the original report 'If you don't start working this, I'll come up and do it myself'.

McDonald with veteran prospector and shearer, Ernie Munns, sank two shafts in 1960, and began carting ore to the nearest state batteries at Peak Hill and then Meekatharra, 300 kilometres away along rough back roads. The first 34 tonnes came in at 145 ounces, then further 60 tonnes 251 ounces, 95 tonnes 237 ounces, and next five crushings produced 868 ounces. It proved a very rich mine, with $20,000 (A) earned in the first 4 years in 1960's figures from 1400 ounces of gold.

McDonald claimed there was no alluvial gold in the area, although unverified later oral accounts disagree with this. Mining continued until 1983 producing a total of 464 ounces of gold from 357 tonnes of ore, at a rich 34.87 g/t Au. The buildings and large amount of machinery left indicates later possible company involvement but no details could be found.

Geology is in short supply and often relates to surrounding country rock. The area contains paragneiss, migmatites, and paraschists of the Morrisey Formation, complexly folded around north-west axes. The Star of Mangaroon deposit is a shear related, stacked system of high grade auriferous quartz veins, dipping 50 degrees east. The ore system is 200 metres long, by 2-4 metres wide. Thin hematite veins cut the ore zone.

Commodity List

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

Mineral List

14 valid minerals.

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

Paleoproterozoic 1600 - 2500 Ma ID: 921648

Pooranoo Metamorphics Age: Proterozoic (1600 - 2500 Ma) Stratigraphic Name: Pooranoo Metamorphics Description: Pelitic schist, gneiss and granofels, and metamorphosed feldspathic sandstone and conglomerate Comments: high grade metamorphic rock; metasedimentary siliciclastic; synthesis of multiple published descriptions Lithology: High grade metamorphic rock; metasedimentary siliciclastic 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]

Paleoproterozoic 1600 - 2500 Ma ID: 3187792

Paleoproterozoic crystalline metamorphic rocks Age: Proterozoic (1600 - 2500 Ma) Stratigraphic Name: Gascoyne Complex Comments: Capricorn Orogen Lithology: Amphibolite grade paragneiss 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