Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	27° 36' 53'' South , 117° 53' 39'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-27.61488,117.89420
GeoHash:	G#: qe5ffszgw
Locality type:	Mine
Köppen climate type:	BWh : Hot deserts climate

The mine is on a small island off the north-east coast of 'The Island', both completely surrounded by the Lake Austin saltpan.

Tom Lawrence discovered in 1892, and initially developed this deposit. It is not thought for long however before he succumbed to typhoid fever, which was sweeping through the miners in plague proportions at the time. He can be credited for being one of the few miners of the time to donate a gold nugget to the Western Australian Museum. It came from the initial discovery of sensationally rich specimens. One lump of quartz the size of a house brick contained 500 oz of gold. Lawrence was trudging across the lake when he saw a seam of gold shining in the sunlight across the face of a large stone block on this small island. Officially he obtained 647 oz of gold from the deposit before his death, although another source stated seeing him with two small cases containing at least 1000 oz of gold. The mine was named the Orient, as he was once engineer on the famous steamship by the same name. The mine was then taken over by the New Orient Company, a New Zealand concern for 125 pounds.

The mine produced small regular tonnages with high ounces until 1895, when the lease was amalgamated with others nearby owned by the Austin Company. At this time, there were several shafts to 40 feet depth, a couple of trenches and small tailings heap. The mine to this point had produced 731.5 tonnes of ore for 3151.03 oz.

Then nothing happened for 100 years. In the early 1990's a new primary gold resource in BIF was found at the site. Victor Caruso, sole proprietor, of the New Orient Gold Mine, (lease M21/66) applied to re-open the deposit via a small open pit. A small CIP plant was also installed, which has not faired well over the years, being attacked by the salt. Mining was conducted between 1998 to 2000, when low gold prices forced its closure. In 2013 Caruso was again granted mining rights to the location.

Commodity List

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

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

Quaternary 0 - 2.588 Ma ID: 930657

lake deposits 38492 Age: Pleistocene (0 - 2.588 Ma) Description: Lake and swamp deposits; mud, silt, evaporites, limestone; minor sand, peat 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: 3188304

Archean volcanic rocks Age: Archean (2500 - 3200 Ma) Comments: Yilgarn Craton Lithology: Greenstone belt; mafic-ultramafic volcanic 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