Boddington Au Mine, Boddington, Boddington Shire, Western Australia, Australia

• Display
  • Standard
  • Detailed
  • By Strunz Category
  • By Dana Category
  • Type Localities in Region
• Photos
  • Mineral Photos (5)
  • - Full View (5)
  • Add Photo
• Maps
  • Map Pages
• Search
  • Mineral Search
  • Search Google

An openpit gold mine located 130 km SE of Perth, in the northeastern jarrah forest, 12 km from the town of Boddington. The mine is a joint venture owned by Newmont Mining Corporation and AngloGold Ashanti.
Production ceased in 2001; new production planned for 2008.




A 1979 survey identified an anomaly in the Saddleback Greenstone Belt. A large open cut operation commenced in 1987, and ceased in 2001, after the known oxide ore resource had been processed. The mine was jointly owned by Normandy Mining, Acacia Resources, and Newcrest Mining. At the time it was the largest gold operation in Australia.

After an extended period the mine was acquired by Newmont Mining, who identified a gold bedrock resource to the north of the original pit. Two pits were opened in 2010, and again forms Australia's largest gold mine (2012). It has estimated reserves of 20 million ounces of gold, and copper production of 30 000 tonnes per year. The estimated life of the mine is twenty years.

The Saddleback Greenstone Belt is a fault bounded sliver of Archaean volcanic and shallow level intrusive rocks, surrounded by granitic and gneissic rocks. The main zone of gold mineralisation occurs reasonably continuously over a strike length of about 5 kilometres long and 1 kilometre wide. This mineralisation forms a semi continuous blanket within the upper iron rich laterite, with more eratic gold distribution in the lower zones. The basement rocks below the oxide zone has gold mineralisation with predominantly andesitic volcanics and diorite dykes. In the primary ore gold is present in millimetre to centimetre scale veinlets in quartz epidote/clinozoisite actinolite.

A small number of high quality, non gold specimens were recovered during the early days of exploration by enlightened geologist Roger Staley. These were donated to the Brisbane Mineral Museum, who off-loaded some spare specimens onto the collectors market. Copper specimens are usually free of matrix and cleaned of patina. The southern pit the specimens came from is now back-filled with the overlying bauxite ore, and rehabilitated.

During the early stages of the original mining period, white quartz with visible veins of gold were found in one section. Three specimens were studied by the Western Australian Chemical Laboratories in 1993. On one specimen the new species Saddlebacktite was found in association with the gold.

Mineral List

Actinolite Aleksite Altaite Chalcopyrite 'Chlorite Group'

Copper Cuprite Galena Gold Malachite

Molybdenite Muscovite Pyrite Pyrrhotite Quartz

Saddlebackite (TL) Silver Tsumoite

18 entries listed. 17 valid minerals. 1 type locality (valid mineral).

References