Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	30° 43' 58'' South , 118° 57' 58'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-30.73294,118.96617
GeoHash:	G#: qds95jhx8
Locality type:	Mine
Köppen climate type:	BSh : Hot semi-arid (steppe) climate

The Birthday Gold Mine is 35 kilometres north of Bullfinch, 3 kilometres east of the Mt Jackson Road, and some 5 kilometres north of the Eenuin gold area. The mine is in the central portion of the north-south striking Highclere Ranges, on the northern section of the Bullfinch Greenstone Belt.

Intermittent mining has occurred at the location since 1911. The mines within a 500 metre strike were the Birthday, Birthday Extended, Birthday South, Birthday West and Birthday West Extended, all now simply known as the Birthday Gold Mine. Production records until the last few years are incomplete or missing, and no detailed geology report has been made on the mine at the time of writing. It consists of a decline into a hill constructed during recent times, with workings at two levels, and historic shallow shafts and alluvial workings. Sheds and machinery also occupy the lease.

Recent history starts with Mount Edon Gold Mines (Aust) Ltd exploring the lease in the 1990's, however it failed to find economic amounts of gold. Active mining was conducted from 2000 to 2010 producing 12 000 tonnes of ore and 160 kg of gold at 14 g/t. In 2010, it is claimed the mine produced almost half a million Australian dollars profit. The Price Brothers had been contracted to work the mine from 2009, with Ramelius Resources contracted to process the material.

It appears Singaporean interests have controlled the mine in recent times. The owner of the mine in 2012 is a Mr Shilkin. El Corporation Ltd purchases the mine in the year, which while formed in Australia in 1984, appears to have had at the time links to Singapore. The company had no mining experience, no directors with mining experience, no operations or financial statements for the past 3 years to purchase, no JORC code resource estimates, no past geology reports available for the mine, and little provided by the company

Its noted in 2013 the mine is owned by Lim Yeow Sun, a Singaporean jewellery businessman, with finances based in overseas tax havens. Infinio Pty Ltd also based in Singapore, was planning to purchase the mine in this year. Why non mining Singaporean entities are interested in a small, remote gold mine no-one has heard of remains a mystery.

The little geology information comes from a brief site visit by a Perth geologist in 2012. The mine is located in the northern section of the Bullfinch Greenstone Belt, containing layered amphibolite and banded iron formations. Shearing within the amphibolites host the primary gold. The mine is near an ultramafic inclusion within a larger sequence of basalts. Parallel shearing hosts most of the gold, with quartz veining with oblique cross cutting veins playing a more minor role. The geologist noted visible gold still lining the underground workings which had not been touched.

Commodity List

This is a list of exploitable or exploited mineral commodities recorded at this locality.

Mineral List

2 valid minerals.

Rock Types Recorded

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

Neoarchean - Mesoarchean 2500 - 3200 Ma ID: 3189632

Archean volcanic rocks Age: Archean (2500 - 3200 Ma) Comments: Yilgarn Craton Lithology: Greenstone belt; mafic-ultramafic volcanic rocks 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]

Archean 2500 - 4000 Ma ID: 722371

mafic extrusive rocks 74255 Age: Archean (2500 - 4000 Ma) Description: Metabasalt, high-Mg basalt, tholeiitic basalt, carbonated basalt, agglomerate, mafic schist, dolerite, amphibolite; porphyritic basalt and dolerite; komatiitic basalt; mafic pyroclastics; minor mafic schist with granite intercalations Comments: igneous mafic volcanic; synthesis of multiple published descriptions Lithology: Igneous mafic volcanic 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