Barbara Gold Mine, Hampton group, Coolgardie, Coolgardie Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Barbara Gold Mine	Mine (Inactive)
Hampton group	Mining Field
Coolgardie	City
Coolgardie Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

Small, abandoned, open cut gold mine located 8 km SE of Coolgardie, in the Eastern Goldfields of WA (active from the 1890s until late 2000s.

The mine worked the Barbara-Brown lode.

The gold was worked in quartz lodes in metamafic greenstones of the Yilgarn Province but some pegmatite veins also occur.

Around 1974, 'danalite-helvite' was discovered in a 0.3 to 1 metre thick pegmatite vein at this gold mine, and specimens have also been found on the huge mullock hill. EDS analysis by Excalibur Minerals has shown the material to be helvite, but many still refer to it as danalite-helvite, in reference to the original uncertainty when it was discovered.

SEM-EDAX characterisation of crystals taken from a vugh opened in 2007 by Grguric and Downes (2009) showed all to be the helvite end-member, leading these authors to a more comprehensive examination of helvite-group minerals from the locality in the W.A. Museum collection. Twelve samples were analysed and all proved to be helvite with variable Fe (3 to 29 mol%) and Zn (0.4 to 15 mol%) substituting for Mn. The occurrence of danalite at the locality is now considered doubtful.

The mine lies on the eastern extension of the Tindal's cross fold axis, in shear zones in the Hampton Ultramafic Belt. The ultramafics are metamorphosed interbedded mafic lavas, ultramafic rocks and schists, mafic intrusives, and sediments, all intruded by porphyry and alaskite (leucogranite) dykes. Gold is found in the shear zones, in ultramafics, close to the porphyry dykes. Some gold is also found in hybridised siliceous lodes, in folded and jointed porphyries, and mafic/ultramafic contacts.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References