Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	28° 45' 59'' South , 122° 38' 22'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-28.76647,122.63949
GeoHash:	G#: qdzhqepr5
Locality type:	Mine
Köppen climate type:	BWh : Hot deserts climate

The Oldfield Surprise Gold Mine is now hidden under hundreds of tonnes of tailings from the modern Burtville open pit. It was just south-east of the Birthday Gift Mine. In its life the mine produced 522 tonnes of ore for 1787 ounces of gold.

Most sources state the mine was called Surprise, the map used Oldfield Surprise, and the ore source quoted above as Oldfield and Surprise, stating further they occupied the same ground.

Wilson and Thompson are noted in 1903, as putting through trial crushings.

In 1912, the company controlling the nearby Nil Desperandum Mine, takes over the Away from Home, Away from Home South and the Surprise mines. The Surprise had been idle for the prior two years, and had reverted to crown land. It was then pegged by two parties at the same time, who were in disputed over ownership. It is assumed one was the company.

How the mine obtained the Oldfield name was not confirmed. It is most likely from H. Oldfield, who pops up at various mines at Burtville, Redcastle and Linden from 1900 to 1911. He was on the Burtville Health Board, and heavily involved with the local rifle club.

Commodity List

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

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

Archean 2500 - 4000 Ma ID: 850326

mafic intrusive rocks 74263 Age: Archean (2500 - 4000 Ma) Description: Mafic intrusive rocks, medium to coarse-grained; layered mafic to ultramafic intrusions - dolerite, gabbro, olivine gabbro, peridotite, pyroxenite, leucogabbro, quartz dolerite, quartz gabbro, gabbronorite Comments: igneous mafic intrusive; synthesis of multiple published descriptions Lithology: Igneous mafic intrusive 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]

Neoarchean - Mesoarchean 2500 - 3200 Ma ID: 3188638

Archean volcanic and intrusive 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]

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

References