Reefton, Buller District, West Coast Region, New Zealandi

Regional Level Types
Reefton	- not defined -
Buller District	District
West Coast Region	Region
New Zealand	Country

This district represents one of New Zealand's major goldfields, but also includes a number of coal mines which mostly operated in support of the gold mines.

Reefton was originally called Quartzopolis, but thankfully changed its name to Reeftown, and finally Reefton. The town has a population of just over 1000 people, and is located 80 kilometres north-east of Greymouth, at the base of the Victoria Range, and the banks of the Inangahua River, western side of the South Island.

Gold was discovered here in 1866, the first major discovery in 1870, credited to James Kelly at the head of Murray Creek, with gold production starting in 1872. A boom-town was quickly established with sixteen hotels, three banks, 2 breweries, two daily newspapers, a stock exchange, and all the facilities of a large town.

Mining wardens in the district in the 1870's to 1880's were Charles Broad, Edward Shaw, and W.H. Revell. Across two days in 1871, Broad heard 170 lease applications, many opposed by rival claimants. Wardens would often sit until midnight to get through the work. Reefton's main street is named after the man.

Many wild cat operators were raising capital for mines, but taking off with the money. Others established infrastructure on leases holding little or no gold. However, about a dozen mines were wildly successful. There is an estimated 84 historic mines that officially produced gold, Mindat only able to list the most major. Mining peaked between the 1870's to 1883, then gradually declined. By World War One, many of the mines had either closed, or were being run by individual prospectors, or small owner working parties of miners.

The Blackwater Mine, the deposit one of the last discovered, was operational more of less continuously from 1905 to 1951. Only the Globe Progress Mine has seen modern open pit development, occurring in recent decades until closing in 2016.

Coal mines were also developed in the area, initially as a power source for gold batteries, then in their own right. In fact during the 20th Century coal in the area became economically more important than gold. Mines ranged from medium sized State and company owned underground workings, to small miner owned/operated by half a dozen individuals. Coal mining continues to a limited degree in the area. Again Mindat can only list the major mines, due to the lack of information historically on smaller operations, and the sheer number.

The Reefton district is faulted to the east with the Karamea Batholith, while to the west the contact is obscured by Tertiary and Quarternary sediments filling the Grey-Inangahua Depression, being a graben separating the Paparoa and Victoria ranges.

The area has a complex geological history, showing sheared out folds, offset fold axes, crush zones, breccia and pug zones, recently uplifted mountain ranges, and earthquake epicentres. The shearing out of fold hinges is common, while thrust faulting has been critical in the development of some of the ore. Gold was formed from compression after a major folding episode, often near anticlinorial axes, in hinge zones, bedding planes, and limbs of folds.

The Reefton orogenic lodes were developed in steep north north-east trending shear zones, that cut across the hinges of earlier folds, within the metasedimentary Greenland Group rocks. This forms an approximately 5 kilometre wide belt of folding and shearing east of the town in the Victoria Range. The gold deposits have been compared to the geology of Bendigo, Ballarat, Beaconsfield, and Gympie in Australia, Nova Scotia in Canada, and the 'Mother Lode' deposits in California.

Apart from gold, the quartz lodes in some mines contain significant amounts of stibnite. Some also contain more minor amounts of pyrite, arsenopyrite, chalcopyrite, galena, and carbonate. Little in the way of a geological investigation was done back in the 19th Century of these locations.

Gold was historically mined as free ranging in quartz reefs, while the gold locked in sulphides, often as a halo around the reefs, less so due to the limitations of technology in times past. Alluvial gold was also mined by way of dredges, from the 1930's to 1950's, south of Reefton along the Grey River, and some of its tributaries.

Reefton has embraced post mining tourism, as a more sustainable future than the boom and bust of gold and coal extraction. There are many walks and mountain bike trails in the Victoria Range, from 2 hours to 3 day marathons, often up and down steep hills. You will see beautiful beech forest, with an understory of ferns, many streams, interspersed with mining relics of times gone by.

For the exercised challenged, the I-Site in town has a mining museum. The historic Reefton School of Mines has a local mineral specimen display, opened on request to the I-Site, and dependent on the availability of volunteers. Two kilometres east of Reefton is Blacks Point with its museum and operating battery, open during summer months. ZZ Top lookalikes, The Bearded Miners, have a reconstruction of an 1870's miners camp along the main street, offering gold panning, gold processing demonstrations, and interesting local stories. Waiuta is a short drive away, containing several abandoned buildings, the remains of batteries, and of the Blackwater Mine.

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