Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	28° 15' 16'' South , 116° 43' 28'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-28.25468,116.72467
GeoHash:	G#: qdgp20kk9
Locality type:	Mine
Köppen climate type:	BWh : Hot deserts climate

This area follows an all too familiar story. Gold is found by a prospector, speculators enter who talk up the deposit, large amounts of money are invested, usually at this time from London, then within a year or two the deposit is found to be a dud.

The area is about 12 kilometres north of Yalgoo and north of the Carlaminda Homestead. The field is about 200 metres west of the Yalgoo North Road and accessed via a faint unmarked track heading north-west. Little remains at the site, other than some collapsed shafts and minor mullock at the southern end of the line of lode.

The Dollar Reef Line trends north-south for about 1.5 kilometres, and there are two other parallel reefs, one called Sovereign of a similar length. There were several leases on the Dollar Line totalling 84 acres, some developed briefly into mines around 1895 to 1896. These leases include the British Empire that even the speculators couldn't talk up and constantly changed hands as each group found little gold. Also L.S.D., Crowe, Rupee, Nullah Nullah owned by Henty and party, Current Coin, Packenham, and Crown.

The Dollars Gold Mining Company was floated in London in October 1895, with 100 000 pounds invested. A highly competent mine manager was employed from Broken Hill called T.H. Harris. Around the same time a programme of trial crushing was initiated.

The Sovereign Lode contained four 12 acres leases. The Sovereign PC Mine, with a shaft to 125 feet on a reef 5 feet wide with visible gold in 1896. This initially gave 163 oz to the tonne dollied, but overall the reef was still poor. The Sovereign North lease adjoined it. The Sovereign and Dollar Mines saw the most work done.

By May 1899, Mine Manager Harris has left to manager another mine, while the plant is put up for sale at a public auction. One writer at the time bitterly states it was a classic case of mine mismanagement, with other peoples funds spent irresponsibly without gaining any result.

Commodity List

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

Mineral List

8 valid minerals.

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: 774100

metamorphosed ultramafic rocks 74286 Age: Archean (2500 - 4000 Ma) Description: Metamorphosed komatiite, pyroxenite, chlorite-tremolite schist, talc-chlorite schist, anthophyllite-tremolite-talc rock; olivine-cummingtonite schist; talc-carbonate-tremolite-chlorite rock, serpentinite; amphibole schist after pyroxenite Comments: igneous ultramafic volcanic; meta-igneous ultramafic intrusive; synthesis of multiple published descriptions Lithology: Igneous ultramafic volcanic; meta-igneous ultramafic 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: 3189631

Archean sedimentary and volcanic rocks Age: Archean (2500 - 3200 Ma) Comments: Yilgarn Craton Lithology: 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