Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	31° 50' 29'' South , 119° 36' 33'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-31.84151,119.60942
GeoHash:	G#: qdm4cg2vt
Locality type:	Mine
Köppen climate type:	BSk : Cold semi-arid (steppe) climate

The British Hill Gold Mine is 40 kilometres south of Marvel Loch, 5 kilometres south of the Dulcie Group of mines, and 2 kilometres west of the Marvel Loch-Forrestania Road.

While prospectors have searched for gold in the area from the 1890's, only from the 1980's was information found under the British Hill name. The site has been the target for several exploration companies, and one small episode of mining.

Geopeko explored for gold here in 1979 and 1983. CRA Exploration Pty Ltd in a joint venture with Southern Gold Fields Ltd and Scanfire Exploration Pty Ltd explored 1986 to 1991 along a 3 kilometre mineralised zone. In 1991, Eclipse Ridge Pty Ltd purchased 80% of CRA's interest and subsequently took over 100%. They mined 160 000 tonnes of ore from a shallow laterite deposit at 1.26 g/t. When this company hit financial difficulties, Abador Gold NL acquired the lease in 1996, and conducted further exploration. In 2001, a company called Hamill Resources Ltd is noted at the lease. 2004 Polaris Metals NL have a controlling interest in the lease. Exploration was a joint venture between them and International Goldfields Ltd (formerly Hamill Resources Ltd), and the actual tenement owners V.W. Strange (a Southern Cross drilling contractor), and J. Treacy. Later Black Oak Minerals have the lease, which was sold to IMD Gold Mines Ltd in 2015.

Abador alone drilled 814 holes into the deposit. While there is always hope some large economic deposit has been missed, many tenements like this in Western Australia are used for promotional purposes only for exploration companies. In other words, it looks good on their websites.

Primary gold mineralisation occurs in multiple lenses associated with transverse faults, and in steep dipping shear zones. It is said the mineral assemblage is similar to the Transvaal mine near Southern Cross. Gold mineralisation at British Hill occurs in association with pyrrhotite and arsenopyrite, with distinctive aluminosilicate assemblages such as sillimanite and andalusite, with silification and replacement of magnetite bearing para-amphibolite.

To the south-east of the old mining area, deeper holes encountered anomalous gold and arsenic associated with foliated to mylonitic highly altered biotite-magnetite-chlorite rocks, with intervals of intense silicification, and quartz, arsenopyrite, pyrite and pyrrhotite. Higher grade intervals are characterised by more intense shearing, silicification, and the presence of biotite and garnet, as well as stronger sulphide concentrations.

The last JORC resource estimate was by Black Oak Minerals Ltd at 1921 Kt of ore at 1.7 g/t yielding 105 Koz of gold.

Commodity List

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

Mineral List

8 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 ID: 758315

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]

Neoarchean - Mesoarchean 2500 - 3200 Ma ID: 3189632

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