Porphyry Gold Mine, Yarri Goldfield, Menzies Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Porphyry Gold Mine	Mine
Yarri Goldfield	Ore Field
Menzies Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

The Porphyry Gold Mine is a large open pit, 5 kilometres west of Yarri. It was most recently developed across 2010 to 2011 by Saracen.

Gold was discovered here in 1933 by Billy Potts and Bobby Welch, pegged as the Chateau Tanunda lease. The place is sometimes referred to as Welch's Find.

By late 1933, they sold the lease to a company. Confusion reigned in the local media over who this was. The most likely outcome, is the deposit was sold to the Porphyry Company, who shortly after sold it to the Edjudina Gold Mining Company. They developed the mine until the World War Two years, and continued in the late 1940's.

The name of the mine either referred to the porphyry outcrop the gold was found in, or the original company who briefly held it. Due to the unclear information shortly after the deposit was discovered, the Mindat localities are separate for Chateau Tanunda and Porphyry. The Porphyry location refers to recent developments by Saracen.

The Porphyry mine is part of Saracen's Carousue Dam project. The processing plant is 40 kilometres south of the mine. Saracen have developed several gold mines in a 90 kilometre stretch north of its processing plant, as far as the Red October mine on the shores of Lake Carey.

Open pit and underground mining started at Porphyry by Saracen in 2010. During its first two months across April and May 2010, the company claims to have extracted 374 000 tonnes of ore for 19 300 ounces of gold at 1.7 g/t. It states historic production is 1.33 Mt at 3.36 g/t yielding 144 Koz. Measured resources as of 2009 were 1.5 Mt at 1.70 g/t yielding 82 000 ounces of gold.

Subsequently to this being written it appears the pit has been partially re-filled.

References

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