Kelly Amethyst Mine, Kimba, Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, Australia

Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	33° 15' 41'' South , 136° 35' 5'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-33.26139,136.58472
Köppen climate type:	BSk : Cold semi-arid (steppe) climate

Kelly Amethyst Mine, semi-precious amethystine quartz filled fractures and cavities in a discordant quartz body cross-cutting Lower Proterozoic schist and gneiss. The reef was traced intermittently for about 10 km to the south. Ten exploratory trenches were excavated across the occurrence. The amethyst occurred as veins up to a metre wide, and in crystal-lined vughs in the host quartz blow. Fragments were found at the surface and in the regolith. The associated rock was a recrystallised quartz blow, with secondary quartz veins. The amethyst colour was variable, from colourless to pale grey, pale purple, pale red-purple, greyish-purple, and greyish red-purple, to very dusky purple, very dusky red-purple, and black. Within individual veins, the colour varied from darker colours near the vein walls to paler colours near the centre. Minor citrine had a red-orange colour. The crystals were small in size, rarely exceeding 6 cm in length. The proportion of gem-quality material in the quartz body was estimated at <5%

Mineral List

1 valid mineral.

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

Quaternary - Cenozoic 0 - 66 Ma ID: 757714

dunes 38496 Age: Cenozoic (0 - 66 Ma) Description: Dunes, sandplain with dunes and swales; may include numerous interdune claypans; may be locally gypsiferous Comments: regolith; synthesis of multiple published descriptions Lithology: Regolith Reference: Raymond, O.L., Liu, S., Gallagher, R., Zhang, W., Highet, L.M. Surface Geology of Australia 1:1 million scale dataset 2012 edition. Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia). [5]

Data and map coding provided by Macrostrat.org, used under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License

References