Molyhil Mine (Moly Hill), Jervois Station, Central Desert Region, Northern Territory, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Molyhil Mine (Moly Hill)	Mine
Jervois Station	- not defined -
Central Desert Region	Region
Northern Territory	Territory
Australia	Country

The name of the mine in various texts and references has varied between Molyhil and Molyhill to Moly Hill. The Northern Territory place names register formally lists it as Moly Hill. The mine is located on Jervois Station and is east of the Elua Range.

Skarn-type tungsten-molybdenum deposit, 240km NE of Alice Springs, mined from 1974 to 1981. The current pit model has estimated probable reserves of 1.094Mt at 0.21% (Mo) and 0.62% (W).
Undergoing active exploration for more resources.

Exploration started at the site in 1970, with mining 1978-1982 (Environmental Assessment Report) producing an estimated 900 000 tonnes of ore and waste, by Petrocarb Exploration. The site was re-habilitated in 1998, which involved the removal of all buildings except concrete slabs, and the revegetation of the waste dumps. Two shallow overgrown open pits remain 800 metres east of the Molyhil Pinnacle.

The site then went through several owners until Thor Mining purchased the former mine in 2005. Drilling started in 2011, and has continued intermittently since. Feasibility studies, native title agreements, marketing investigations, environmental reports, and a steady stream of media announcements have followed, but at the time of writing twelve years later renewed mining is yet to eventuate.

The mine is located within a roof pendant within Jinka Granite. The site contains two iron rich skarn bodies, containing scheelite and molybdenum, both structures trending north-south, dipping steeply east. Scheelite mineralisation occurs in quartz-magnetite-amphibolite-apatite rock, with pyrite, chalcopyrite, molybdenum, and allanite. The scheelite fluoro's yellow. It is sometimes black in colour in veins and fissures where it has mixed with ferberite.

Specifically, scheelite is concentrated parallel to the bedding, associated with quartz and calcite, in a garnet-scapolite-diopside-hedenburgite-calcite-quartz-sphene calc-silicate rock, with accessory apatite, and blue-green amphibolite, which is thought to be a type of riebeckite or hastingsite. The calc-silicate rock contains considerable potash feldspar near its contact with intruding granites.

The magnetite dominant rocks are interlayered as 1-2 metres bands, with the calc-silicate rocks. Garnets at the mine are light brown to pink. Scapolite altered to chlorite, and pyroxene altered to epidote is common. Calcite and quartz fills vughs. Layers of microcline-diopside rock is finely interbedded with garnet-scapolite-diopside rock. The small pit north of the main pit
contains hematite instead of magnetite.

Drilling from the base of the northern pit intersected a quartz-fluorite breccia reef, down dip from where it outcrops north of the pit. Below this was magnetite bearing calc-silicate rock, displaced 30 metres to the east. Between the two pits drilling found magnetite rich rocks, containing weak scheelite mineralisation.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References