Queen of Sheba Gold Mine (Evening Star; Morning Star), Tennant Creek, Barkly Region, Northern Territory, Australia

Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	19° 23' 12'' South , 134° 6' 1'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-19.3867869658, 134.100387608

The old mine is located 30 kilometres north north-west of Tennant Creek, and 6 kilometres north-east of the Gecko mine, and 10 kilometres south south-west of the Northern Star mine. It can be access by a station track north-east of the Gecko mine, and then 1.8 kms east along bush tracks.

The mine was likely active from around 1934, but who discovered it is unknown. A rich strike of 60 ounces to the tonne was reported in 1936. By 1938, the mine had produced 154 tonnes of ore for 153 ounces of gold. Another source in 1943 reports 555 tonnes of ore for 322 ounces of gold to that time. Yet another source for the history of the mine claims 224 tonnes of ore for 159 ounces of gold. The mine closed in 1939, after a poor crushing.

The lease was taken out in 1942 as GML 92E by Frank Reynolds Monk, Norman Crowther, and Leslie Richard Trace, 20 acres.

Hereward Gordon Kirkpatrick was the son of well known architect John Kirkpatrick, who designed several notable buildings up to his death in 1923. Hereward had purchased a two/third interest in the Queen of Sheba mine for 180 pounds, which he then sold to a syndicate for 5000 pounds. In a subsequent discharge of bankruptcy hearing in 1943, the judge was highly critical of the transaction, and labelled Kirkpatrick a con-artist.

After several months of development work, and the sinking of a shaft by an Adelaide syndicate, an exemption was applied for in 1949. Drilling and Development (TC) NL undertook drilling in the early 1950's, then North Enterprise Gold Mines NL took an option to purchase for 20 000 pounds, and deepened the main shaft between 1953 to 1955, with cross-cuts developed at the 21, 30 and 46 metre levels. They stated at a depth of 27.4 metres, the lode was 10.7 to 13.7 metres wide, averaging 25.5 g/t Au. A 120 tonne parcel of ore was produced yielding 14.6 g/t when 27 g/t was expected, and this caused the company to abandon the option.

Constantine Perry, former president of the Tennant Creek Miner's Association, with Mick Bradwell were working the mine around 1951. Perry was charged, and found guilty in 1952 for unlawful possession of 61 ounces of gold, he claimed had come from the Queen of Sheba mine. Considering the pair had abandoned the mine the year before, reporting little gold had been found, the court did not believe Perry's story. He was fined 100 pounds, despite the amount of gold being worth 900 pounds. Perry applied for the Queen of Sheba South-West Extended lease (part of the Queen of Sheba lease), and the Queen of Sheba North East Extended (adjacent to the Queen of Sheba lease) in 1953.

Consolidated Gold Mining Areas NL drilled the deposit in 1960.
Geopeko with North Flinders Mines explored the deposit intermittently from 1978 to 1996. Normandy (formerly North Flinders Mines) as the Central Joint Venture, after exploring in the late 1990's stated the deposit was patchy with gold, lacking structural and geochemical focus, and the ironstone bodies too small to be economic.

The site contains three prominent ridges, representing the Queen of Sheba, Evening Star, and Morning Star deposits. The only tonnages recorded is from the Queen of Sheba, with at least two shafts and a tunnel noted in historical records. The three hills are deemed as indigenous sacred sites.

The area is bounded to the south-east, east and north by igneous rocks, quartz and feldspar porphyries, rhyolite, and jasperoid quartz reefs

Queen of Sheba contains pods of hematite-magnetite ironstone associated with shears dipping south-west. Evening Star is said to be adjacent to the west and Morning Star to the south. They show magnetite-hematite, or quartz-hematite outcrops. The former is black dense non gossanous lenticular reef like magnetite-hematite bodies with little quartz evident, individual lenses up to 150 metres long, and rarely over 10 metres thick.

Alternatively the ironstone pods show black dense magnetite-hematite up to 15 metres long, in a quartz-hematite matrix. The matrix forms bodies 150 x 100 metres, showing mainly quartz, with specular hematite intergrowths. This is surrounded by sheared siltstone, greywacke, and shales. Immediately to the east of Evening Star is foliated, and in places banded quartz-feldspar porphyry intrusive of the Bernborough Formation.

Mineral List

7 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

Cenozoic 0 - 66 Ma

sand plain 38499 Age: Cenozoic (0 - 66 Ma) Description: Sand or gravel plains; may include some residual alluvium; quartz sand sheets commonly with ferruginous pisoliths or pebbles; local clay, calcrete, laterite, silcrete, silt, colluvium 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]

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

References