Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	28° 45' 51'' South , 122° 38' 15'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-28.76432,122.63754
GeoHash:	G#: qdzhqetgt
Locality type:	Mine
Köppen climate type:	BWh : Hot deserts climate

The Birthday Gift Gold Mine is presently hidden under hundreds of tonnes of tailings from the modern abandoned Burtville pit, at the northern end of the field.

Before 1912, it is said the mine, under the name Specimen Hill and Edith Hope, produced 4000 tonnes of ore for 9000 pounds money-wise of gold. It was one of the first leases on the field, but the earliest information found was 1901, when German and party put through several crushings. From around 1903 onwards the mine is held under exemption.

Bryce Bunny and party develop the mine further in 1907, with a five head battery and cyanide plant purchased from the nearby Sons of Westralia lease, employing 22 men.

In 1911, the lease was taken under a six month option by the Birthday Gift Gold Mining Company. This company had been floated to develop a mine at Bullfinch. Known as the Bullfinch Boom, things quickly went bust, and the company diverted its attention to Burtville.

Two shafts were sunk, a five head mill and cyanide plant erected, spending 3000 pounds. At 120 feet the reef split into a west and east section. G.S. Beresford was mine manager. After the six months the company abandoned the option, in favour of a tin lease at Greenbushes. C. Hirth or the Hirth brothers are also noted for crushings during the same period and must have been working another part of the lease.

In 1915, the Amalgamated Westralia Gold Mining Company of Melbourne purchase the battery from T. James, and remove it to another mine site.

Commodity List

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

Mineral List

1 valid mineral.

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: 704381

colluvium 38491 Age: Pleistocene (0 - 2.588 Ma) Description: Colluvium and/or residual deposits, sheetwash, talus, scree; boulder, gravel, sand; may include minor alluvial or sand plain deposits, local calcrete and reworked laterite 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: 3188638

Archean volcanic and intrusive 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