Golden Treasure Mine (Band of Hope; Murray Creek), Reefton, Buller District, West Coast Region, South Island, New Zealand
| Latitude & Longitude (WGS84): | 42° 7' 22'' South , 171° 55' 5'' East |
|---|---|
| Latitude & Longitude (decimal): | -42.12295,171.91825 |
| Köppen climate type: | Cfb : Temperate oceanic climate |
Maps found name it Murray Creek after one of the companies which operated the mine, in turn named after a nearby water course. Henderson gives a detailed description of the location as Golden Treasure, with Band of Hope a neighbouring mine worked in conjunction. Westland, Golden Hill, Perseverance, and Comstock were nearby claims of little importance. It is on the same lode as Inglewood, Phoenix, Victoria, North Star mines, but at the southern end. It will take a five hour uphill hike to get to this location from Blacks Point, the site near the intersection of the main track, with the side track to Inglewood. What remains at the location, or if it is accessible from the track is uncertain.
Discovered by James Kelly around 1872. Westland saw gold production in July 1872, Band of Hope October, and Golden Hill November of the same year, but results were poor, and little happened until 1875 when the Golden Treasure Company was formed to develop this lease. They acquired also the Band of Hope lease in 1877.
The battery erected by Westland in 1872, was reconfigured in 1883 to cope with the antimony ore prevalent at the site. Despite paying dividends, work ceased in 1886.
The leases were purchased by a syndicate in 1889, with J.B. Beale as manager. They cleaned out the Band of Hope low level adit, achieving average results, before work stopped again in 1892. The Anglo Continental Company re-opened some of the workings in 1898, but found little of interest.
The leases were taken over in 1901 by London based Goldfields of New Zealand Ltd. They dismantled the 15 head battery, with the winding engine going to the Energetic Mine. The leases were abandoned again in 1906.
They were later taken over by Wellington Mines, which merged with the Murray Creek Mines Company. They extended the low level adit, and sank a 308 foot deep shaft, 50 feet above the main adit. Meanwhile on Band of Hope were two adits 190 feet apart.
The leases contained four ore bodies. The most northerly was Westland, worked from 1875 to 1876, 4 foot wide, but generally gold poor. South of this was Golden Treasure, 2 to 5 feet wide, 100 foot long, and gold rich. Large quantities of stibnite was found in what was called the 'Antimony Block' south of Westland, however all the leases contained significant amounts of stibnite to a certain extent.
The Golden Treasure lease contained two parallel ore bodies, 50 feet apart, to the west of the Antimony Block, and east of what was called the North Block. The Band of Hope lease contained a large ore body, 200 feet long, by 6 feet wide, worked to a depth of 400 feet, containing some rich ore, although overall a low grade at up to 4 dwt per tonne.
The Perseverance lease was west of Band of Hope, with production starting in 1876, but abandoned by 1880, due to low gold grades. Goldfields of New Zealand took a liking to the claim, accessing two short adits on an ore body 200 feet long by 3 feet thick, but only found average amounts of gold.
The claims (mainly Golden Treasure and Band of Hope) have produced the ninth largest amount of gold in the Reefton district, at 52 943 tonnes of quartz, yielding 33 887 ounces of gold, at a grade of 19.9 .
Mineral List
3 valid minerals.
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
| Rhuddanian - Jiangshanian 440.8 - 494 Ma ID: 1350266 | Greenland Group metasediment Age: Paleozoic (440.8 - 494 Ma) Stratigraphic Name: Buller Terrane; Greenland Group Description: Undifferentiated greenish-grey quartzose greywacke and argillite; locally hornfelsed close to granitoid plutons. Comments: Basement (Western Province) metamorphic rocks. Age based on Based on stratigraphic age range Lithology: Major:: {sandstone},Minor:: {mudstone} Reference: Heron, D.W. . Geology Map of New Zealand 1:250 000. GNS Science Geological Map 1. [13] |
| Ordovician - Late Cambrian 443.8 - 501 Ma ID: 1312947 | Greenland Group metasedimentary rocks Age: Paleozoic (443.8 - 501 Ma) Stratigraphic Name: Greenland Group; Greenland Group metasedimentary rocks Description: Quartzose metasandstone and metamudstone, hornfelsed near plutons and locally schistose. Comments: Western Province (Buller Terrane) Rocks Lithology: Sandstone, mudstone, schist Reference: Edbrooke, S.W., Heron, D.W., Forsyth, P.J., Jongens, R. (compilers). Geology Map of New Zealand 1:1 000 000. GNS Science Geological Map 2. [12] |
Data and map coding provided by Macrostrat.org, used under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
References
