Sloan's Gully, The Gardens Station, Central Desert Region, Northern Territory, Australia

Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	23° 18' 23'' South , 134° 13' 59'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-23.3065736115, 134.233240186

An alluvial gold locality.

Located immediately north and west of Sliding Rock Hill. The area can be accessed from several directions, all remote tracks through mountains. It is too difficult to explain directions (see Google Earth instead), and besides oral accounts online, indicate the area could be under an active prospector lease, and visitors have been threatened with legal action in the past.

Modern information indicates the northern alluvial section is called Sloan's Gully, and the section north of the Sliding Rock Well (west of the hill), the Sliding Rock alluvial area. This can be accessed from a track along a creek heading north of the well, although it appears not well maintained.

Only one historical account was found, that by the local warden, shortly after discovery of the site in 1903. The northern section it states (what is now called Sloan's Gully), was actually discovered by a prospector called Ryan. Winnecke Goldfield prospector, John Bull purchased the lease, renamed it Killarney, and Marsh, Douglas, Bull (surnames), and three others set about sinking a shaft down 40 feet. The reef trended north-west, and dipped west. The shaft was sunk through decomposed and kaolinised schistose, the reef cellular and massive quartz, with auriferous pyrite the warden states. There are likely to have been many other prospectors at this time dry blowing for alluvial nuggets.

The Warden states the area one mile to the west (actually south-west) was discovered by the prospector Sloan (what is now called the Sliding Rock area). This is basically further up the creek. Both occupy small rocky gullies. At Sliding Rock, the warden states conglomerate dykes across the gully. Seventeen men are working the field in 1903, with around 200 ounces of gold found. Sloan and party's largest two nuggets were 13 ounces and 10 ounces.

The best modern source of information was exploration by the Australian Anglo American Ltd in the mid 1980's. At this time it states Sloan's Gully (northern area) was extensively worked for alluvial and hard reef mining. It focused on one section of the workings called Old Camp Trench (south-east section of the field), showing quartz veins injected along the contact of the silicified quartzite Footwall, and quartz-sericite schist Hanging Wall. This trends east-west, and dips 60 degrees north. Grades were found of 1.55 g/t Au along the 16 metre face. At Sliding Rock to the south-west, there are two open cuts, an adit, and collapsed shafts in quartz-sericite schist. The rocks are folded into an east plunging syncline, with the workings 20-30 metres above the contact with the underlying Ankala Gneiss.

Roebuck Resources in 1994 state Sloan's Gully contains many old pits in a deeply incised gully in fractured, silicified kaolinite-sericite Heavitree Quartzite. Only a narrow zone of gold was found at depth. A 5 metre line produced a grade of 3.2 g/t Au in a quartz cemented quartzite breccia at a depth of 77 metres. At Sliding Rock there are quartz veins, pods and stringers in altered quartzite, and sericite phyllite, with boxworks after pyrite both in the quartz and wall rock. Little gold was found.

Mineral List

1 valid mineral.

Rock Types Recorded

Entries shown in red are rocks recorded for this region.

References