Power of Wealth Gold Mine, Kurundi Goldfield, Wauchope, Barkly Region, Northern Territory, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Power of Wealth Gold Mine	Mine
Kurundi Goldfield	Ore Field
Wauchope	- not defined -
Barkly Region	Region
Northern Territory	Territory
Australia	Country

The Power of Wealth gold mine is about 13 kilometres west north-west of the Kurundi pastoral station homestead. The mine sits in a rugged landscape of jumbled hills, access only for the most well prepared and adventurous. No access track could be seen.

The site has seen limited activity due to the patchy, and small nature of the ore body. Little historical information was found, however many of the prospectors, and small time miners, would not rate a mention in the city newspapers, thousands of kilometres away.

Pegged in 1926 by W. Garnett on behalf of the Mid Australian Exploration Company. The E and R Syndicate headed by P.H. O'Nain conducted six months of testing at the site in 1936, said to have taken 500 samples, with only 11 containing any gold. At the end of the year, prospector Gilbert Moffatt had taken over. In 1949, Herbert McPherson Barker, and Roderick Thompson took over the lease (GML 12F). Also in 1949, former Northern Territory mines inspector, Tennant Creek gold miner, Mosquito Creek wolfram miner, and general trouble maker, Alexander McDonald took out 400 tonnes of ore, with another 200 tonnes left in the dumps at 10 dwt according to McDonald. Two parcels of ore at 18 tonnes for 5 ounces at 6.5 dwt, and 21 tonnes of ore for 6 ounces at 1.7 dwt was extracted in 1950. BMR mapped and sampled the deposit in 1962 for lessee H. Hachmann. Geologist, W.G. MacLean took eleven samples in 1970 from the 40 foot level, containing trace to 26 dwt gold.

The deposit outcrops across 10 metres wide, dipping 40 degrees east, on a quartz ridge, along a south trending hill, weathered in places to quartz boulders on the eastern side of the hill. Gold is found amongst intense lenticular quartz reefs, 3-7 feet wide, to 100 feet long in sandstone, quartzite and schist of the Kurinelli Sandstone, and Epenarra Volcanics. Little gold is found near surface, with gold patchy and discontinuous at the 40 foot level of the main shaft.

The old workings consist of several small pits, and five shafts, with only the most northern one at 100 feet deep, forming the main workings, cutting the ore lode at 40 feet below the surface, with north-south drives, or east-west depending on the source. At the 40 foot level, the lode shows as massive quartz, underlain by 2 feet of shattered quartz, then 3 feet of massive quartz, then the bottom 2 feet of shattered quartz again. The quartz is white, except for one small area of rose quartz.

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