Sundowner gold prospects, Bronzewing Goldfield (Mount McClure), Leonora Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Sundowner gold prospects	Group of Prospects
Bronzewing Goldfield (Mount McClure)	Ore Field
Leonora Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

Some geologists get very excited about regolith. We are talking here about clays, sediments, alluvium etc. As gold was found in the Bronzewing area in this material, it is time I am afraid to face this subject. While Sundowner is an anomalous gold prospect, the source succeeds to filling several pages of regolith description without mentioning gold once for Sundowner.

The Sundowner prospect is 12 kilometres north-east of the Bronzewing Gold Mine, and just north of Bates Creek.

The transported overburden at the prospect is 100 metres deep. The top 50 metres is similar in composition to that found at Bronzewing, except with the addition of more feldspar and coarse quartz from a granite area to the north-west.

Below the 50 metre mark is puggy goelithic clay, dominated by small 0.5 to 5 mm spherical pisoliths, with cores of either hematite-maghemite, Fe clay, organic debris, quartz or a mix of these. Between the two lithologies described above is an 8 metre band of Fe gravels.

Soils in the sediments contain quartz grains, hematite, kaolinite and minor feldspar, muscovite and calcite. The clays described above range from dark brown to reddish maroon, consisting of hematite, quartz, kaolinite and minor goethite, with some hematite pseudomorphing after wood fragments.

At the 60 to 90 metres mark the clays also contain laterite nodules, pisoliths, duricrust, collapsed mottled saprolite, mottled saprolite, Fe saprolite, saprolite and then bedrock.

Nodular angular and platy fragments of mottled saprolite is composed of hematite, goethite, kaolin, gibbsite, quartz and anatase. The nodules are sometimes pseudomorphs of primary minerals. Also contained in the mottled saprolite is red, hematitic, tabular Fe fragments 10-70 mms across.

In the upper level of the saprolite, weathering has created voids, and when these amalgamate causes the saprolite to collapse. This forms then a condensed residual horizon. Nodules within this horizon are yellowish brown but are dark brown or black above this.

Fe saprolite is yellowish brown or reddish brown of kaolin impregnated by goethite. The upper saprolite contains cream, light yellow and grey clays of kaolin, smectite and quartz.

Near the base is creamy buff, light green, or khaki cream coloured clays and saprolite fragments with weathered chloritic basalt passing into fresh bedrock. The lower part of the saprolite contains chlorite, feldspar, quartz, calcite, mica and pyrite.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References