Acheron Mine, Coalgate, Selwyn District, Canterbury Region, South Island, New Zealand
| Latitude & Longitude (WGS84): | 43° 23' 9'' South , 171° 36' 39'' East |
|---|---|
| Latitude & Longitude (decimal): | -43.38590,171.61100 |
| KΓΆppen climate type: | Cfb : Temperate oceanic climate |
Old coal mine.
Located in the Acheron River gorge, approximately 45 kilometres west north-west of Coalgate. The road to Lake Coleridge is the nearest access, with the coal mine about 2 kilometres upstream. There appears no easy access.
Near the mine entrance is a site for xonolite. The gorge is also the type locality for the Genus Austrocardium, and its only representative Austrocardium Acheronis, collected by W.S. Fyfe in 1949, from an oyster bed in the gorge, near the coal mine. It is a bivalve mollusc fossil, the shell up to 70 mms in diameter, found as flattened calcite shells in a siltstone and sandstone matrix.
Assistant government geologist S. Herbert Cox stated in 1882, the coal was anthracite, of a very high quality, in seam 4 foot thick, striking north-south, and dipping 30 degrees west. The coal occurs with large dykes, which have altered the coal to anthracite, with basalt and shale. It is on the 'Oakden estate' owned by a Mr. Murchison.
Speight states the succession shows a basal greywacke, sandy carbonaceous shale 25 feet thick with altered coal seam 14 feet thick, grey fireclay and sandy grey clays, white sandy shale altered more in the upper levels to a porcellanite clay, a massive sill 25 feet thick with a decomposed surface showing a columnar structure, then surface gravels. The coal is 35-40 feet below the surface. The units he states dips 10 degrees west. The coal seam is (was) exposed in the cliff face.
In 1885, a Christchurch business group approached the government to extend a railway to the site without success. Any coal mining which took place is thought to have been sporadic, although Speight states ' a fair amount of coal was extracted', little could be found to support this. Coal was used from the site during the Lake Coleridge hydro-electric works in 1913-1914.
Commodity List
This is a list of exploitable or exploited mineral commodities recorded at this locality.Mineral List
Rock Types Recorded
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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
| Eocene - Late Cretaceous 33.9 - 100.5 Ma ID: 1309499 | Eyre Group and Broken River Formation Late Cretaceous-Eocene terrestrial sedimentary rocks Age: Phanerozoic (33.9 - 100.5 Ma) Stratigraphic Name: Eyre Group; Broken River Formation Description: Quartz sandstone, carbonaceous mudstone and claystone with minor conglomerate and lensoidal coal seams. Comments: Zealandia Megasequence Terrestrial and Shallow Marine Sedimentary Rocks (Paleogene to Cretaceous) Lithology: Sandstone, mudstone, claystone, conglomerate, coal 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] |
| Lutetian - Santonian 41.3 - 86.3 Ma ID: 1350623 | Broken River Formation Late Cretaceous - Eocene mudstone (Eyre Group) Age: Phanerozoic (41.3 - 86.3 Ma) Stratigraphic Name: Broken River Formation Description: Carbonaceous and quartzose claystone mudstone and sandstone; local coal seams. Comments: Late Cretaceous - Paleogene sedimentary rocks. Age based on Paleontology/palynology/stratigraphy, Mh-Dp fossils Lithology: Major:: {claystone},Minor:: {lignite, sandstone} Reference: Heron, D.W. . Geology Map of New Zealand 1:250 000. GNS Science Geological Map 1. [13] |
| Jurassic - Triassic 145 - 252.17 Ma ID: 3185705 | Mesozoic sedimentary and volcanic rocks Age: Mesozoic (145 - 252.17 Ma) Stratigraphic Name: Torlesse Supergroup Lithology: Mafic volcanic rocks; basalt; chert,greywacke,argillite,limestone 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
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