Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	27° 14' 46'' South , 117° 50' 43'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-27.24625,117.84538
GeoHash:	G#: qe5ucxurh
Köppen climate type:	BWh : Hot deserts climate

Approximately 30 kilometres north-west of Cue, and about 5 kilometres east of the Beringarra-Cue Road. It is where the road turns sharply north-east to north-west, and is east of the Harris Find gold area.

When the writer tried to visit the area, it was blocked by a station fence. Satellite images were looked at. The only information found was a short conversation on a public forum from people familiar with the area. This said Curtis Find is in fact a massive area covering several dozen square kilometres, in which a number of small alluvial patches have been found. Mining leases are likely active. The discussion reports one prospector using a D9 bulldozer to clear areas for metal detecting, and another making life a misery for anyone visiting the field. The writer can report at least three run-in's with leaseholders around Cue in researching for Mindat, and I don't even own a metal detector.

Satellite images show one small area which has suffered heavy exploration, with tracks, line of exploration holes etc. Whatever activity in the other areas has left a light or no marks on the landscape.

The Cue Shire promotes metal detecting tourism, yet to the writer's knowledge there are no areas in the entire Murchison region (an area the size of Tasmania) set aside for people who want to go metal detecting. They cannot have it both ways -either they are mining towns, or tourism towns. With a couple of exceptions, gold mining is moribund in the region. If areas were set aside for metal detecting, it would during the winter months provide a stable and continuous tourism income for these towns.

Further, anyone who has read through the various articles, and viewed the pictures taken would understand these old gold mines would be of great interest to many people. There is no signage directing people to the areas, information signs on history and geology, or safety fences and viewing platforms. Many are active exploration company leases, who are doing little with these areas. Tourism development of these places would encourage people to stay in the towns several days, rather than passing through. In the meantime, the best source of information on-line is Mindat.

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

Quaternary 0 - 2.588 Ma ID: 759094

colluvium 38491 Age: Pleistocene (0 - 2.588 Ma) Description: Colluvium and/or residual deposits, sheetwash, talus, scree; boulder, gravel, sand; may include minor alluvial or sand plain deposits, local calcrete and reworked laterite Comments: regolith; synthesis of multiple published descriptions Lithology: Regolith 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: 3188304

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]

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

References

External Links