Charleston, Buller District, West Coast Region, New Zealandi
| Regional Level Types | |
|---|---|
| Charleston | - not defined - |
| Buller District | District |
| West Coast Region | Region |
| New Zealand | Country |
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Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):
41° 54' 23'' South , 171° 26' 18'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):
Historic gold rush town.
Extensive limestone caves are in the surroundings.
Small town 30 kms south of Westport. William Fox is credited with discovering gold here in 1867. The gold was very fine, found in sandstone and beach sands. Gold was mined from the southern end of Nine Mile Beach until the late 1970's.
The Charleston area also contained some coal mines from 1944, supplying mainly Westport, however indications are coal in the area is sub-bituminous, and of a poor quality.
Coal is found in the Brunner Coal Measures, late Eocene, up to 76 metres thick, of poorly sorted coarse quartz sand, with inclusions of quartz, and greywacke conglomerate, clay, carbonaceous shale, and coal. Above this is late Eocene-early Oligocene Little Totara Sand, of well sorted medium grained quartz-feldspar-mica sand, with Quarternary gravel and sand above.
The McLaughlin coal mine is noted for containing layers of almost perfect quartz crystals, various twinning, outgrowths, double terminations, and irregular aggregate clusters. However, the crystals only reach 4 mms in size.
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Standard Detailed Gallery Strunz Chemical ElementsCommodity List
This is a list of exploitable or exploited mineral commodities recorded from this region.Mineral List
Mineral list contains entries from the region specified including sub-localities3 valid minerals.
Rock Types Recorded
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Alphabetical List Tree DiagramDetailed Mineral List:
| ⓘ Beryl Formula: Be3Al2(Si6O18) Reference: Railton, G.L., Watters, W.A. (1990) Minerals of New Zealand, New Zealand Geological Survey Bulletin No. 104.
|
| ⓘ Gold Formula: Au Reference: Local museum |
| ⓘ Quartz Formula: SiO2 Reference: Soong, R., Blattner, P. (1986) Biterminal authigenic 18O-enriched quartz in a subbituminous coal seam, Charleston, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, 29:2, 141-145. |
Gallery:
List of minerals arranged by Strunz 10th Edition classification
| Group 1 - Elements | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ⓘ | Gold | 1.AA.05 | Au |
| Group 4 - Oxides and Hydroxides | |||
| ⓘ | Quartz | 4.DA.05 | SiO2 |
| Group 9 - Silicates | |||
| ⓘ | Beryl | 9.CJ.05 | Be3Al2(Si6O18) |
List of minerals for each chemical element
| Be | Beryllium | |
|---|---|---|
| Be | ⓘ Beryl | Be3Al2(Si6O18) |
| O | Oxygen | |
| O | ⓘ Beryl | Be3Al2(Si6O18) |
| O | ⓘ Quartz | SiO2 |
| Al | Aluminium | |
| Al | ⓘ Beryl | Be3Al2(Si6O18) |
| Si | Silicon | |
| Si | ⓘ Beryl | Be3Al2(Si6O18) |
| Si | ⓘ Quartz | SiO2 |
| Au | Gold | |
| Au | ⓘ Gold | Au |
References
Sort by
Year (asc) Year (desc) Author (A-Z) Author (Z-A)Railton, G.L., Watters, W.A. (1990) Minerals of New Zealand, New Zealand Geological Survey Bulletin No. 104.
Soong, R., Blattner, P. (1986) Biterminal authigenic 18O-enriched quartz in a subbituminous coal seam, Charleston, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, 29:2, 141-145.
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Localities in this Region
- West Coast Region
- Buller District
- Charleston
- Buller District
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