Dresser Mine, North Pole, Shaw River District, East Pilbara Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Dresser Mine	Mine
North Pole	- not defined -
Shaw River District	Mining District
East Pilbara Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

Invariably type Dresser and Barite on the internet, and a large number of scientific articles will appear relating to early life forms on the planet, stromatolites, microfossils, and life on Mars. This is off-topic, and too complex to include here, but some easily accessed articles are listed in the references, but are by no means complete.

Several locations in the region contain stromatolite fossils, and microfossils dated such that it has pushed back the time of earliest life on the planet. These are found in the Dresser Formation and Strelley Pool Chert. Several locations in the region lay claim to the oldest ore deposits in the world, in some of the oldest rocks (Greenland/Labrador possibly excepted). None of this has been discovered without controversy, although the criticism is often from afar.

This article deals with the Dresser barite mine, one of the largest barite deposits in Australia. This is located about 2 kilometres south-east of the Normay camp, an abandoned gold mine, the camp used these days mainly by scientists. The area is called North Pole, probably an early joke by miners. The mines are found in the North Pole Dome, part of the Pilbara Craton.

The formation of the barite has been put down to volcanic chimney smokers, evaporative processes, and possibly the most popular hydrothermal processes. Barite veins can be seen outcropping across the hill sides in the area. The black variety will let off a putrid rotten egg smell if interfered with, while the white/pale yellow barite, is said to be better behaved.

First noted by government geologist Blatchford in 1912. Stan Hilditch pegged several claims in 1959, and then Associated Minerals in 1966. By 1970 they had produced 528 tonnes of barite. In 1972, Dresser Australia Pty Ltd took over, producing 129 505 tonnes of barite between 1972 to 1990.

Haoma Mining NL control the area, and around 2009 to 2014, Brookdale Contracting mined barite again under tribute from Haoma. This recent activity may have altered the next description. The track to the mine swings to the left from the Normay camp, past the ore stockpile, ore sorter apparatus, and up a steeply eroded track to the right to the first pit, which is the larger of the two pits. The smaller pit to the east contains a 15 to 20 metre wide barite vein in intensely altered pillowed basalt. Climbing up the high hill to the east is barite veins in altered moderately east dipping pillow basalts.

Pale blue-grey coarsely crystalline barite, in beds 10 to 20 cms thick, is found in a sequence of basic and acidic volcanic rocks, meta chert, and minor dolomite, pyroxenite calc schist, and carbonate rock. Chert and barite 5 to 50 metres thick is interbedded with cherty conglomerate and tuffaceous sandstone. The barite is often in veins in fracture systems, the most where fractures intersect, attaining widths of 20 to 50 metres of barite. The deposits can be lenticular, tabular, wedge shaped or sigmoidal depending on structural controls.

The source states there are barite prospects to the north and west of the Dresser mine, but remain undeveloped.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References