Mount Gould iron ore deposit (Lens G6), Mount Gould Station, Meekatharra Shire, Western Australia, Australia
| Latitude & Longitude (WGS84): | 25° 48' 7'' South , 117° 20' 34'' East |
|---|---|
| Latitude & Longitude (decimal): | -25.80208,117.34279 |
| GeoHash: | G#: qe7mnny7v |
| Locality type: | Deposit |
| Köppen climate type: | BWh : Hot deserts climate |
Located on Mount Gould itself, 145 kilometres north-west of Meekatharra, directly north of the Mount Augustus-Meekatharra Road. The historic Mount Gould police station is nearby.
The area is hematite rich, with an estimated reserve of 117 000 metric tonnes, or 128 970 short tonnes. It is on-strike with the iron in the Jack Hills to the south-west, mined for 5 years (2006-2011) by Crosslands Resources.
The Mount Gould deposits are gneiss with interspersed zones of metasediments. Metamorphism increases grades, with amphibolite facies the predominant type. Metasediments are strongly deformed with bedding generally orientated in a north-east to south-west direction.
The iron mineralisation is a high grade hematite-martite lode style, with lens 3 to 25 metres wide, averaging 8-9 metres, 150 to 400 metres long. The exploration company states there are multiple lodes across three tenements, the main target up to 6 stacked iron ore lenses.
The exploration company has dug a trial pit on a ridge on Mount Gould.
The Mid-West region saw five deposits explored actively for iron ore in the early 2000's. Four opened as mines, being Jack Hills, Tallering Peak near Mullewa, Karara near Perenjori, and Mount Gibson which is south of Paynes Find. Jack Hills closed in 2011. Tallering Peak closed in 2014 both due to lower iron ore prices. Before the Tallering mine, the hill was a local tourist attraction, which is now permanently off limits to the public, due to concerns someone will fall into the abandoned pit left behind. Weld Range failed to get off the ground partly due to outrage over trial pit mining, next to an important indigenous cultural site. All are on hills surrounded by plains. All contain rare flora and fauna unique to these isolated hills. This has been of concern to the local Department of Environment, however the mines were given the go-ahead anyway.
Mineral List
1 valid mineral.
Rock Types Recorded
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Alphabetical List Tree DiagramRegional 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: 872895 | banded iron formation and minor amphibolite 74257 Age: Archean (2500 - 4000 Ma) Description: Metamorphosed oxide-facies banded iron formation, finely laminated amphibolite, ultramafic schist, quartz-magnetite-(grunerite-garnet) rock. Comments: sedimentary non-carbonate chemical or biochemical; synthesis of multiple published descriptions Lithology: Sedimentary non-carbonate chemical or biochemical 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] |
| Mesoarchean - Paleoarchean 2800 - 3600 Ma ID: 3192079 | Archean sedimentary rocks Age: Archean (2800 - 3600 Ma) Stratigraphic Name: Narryer Complex Comments: Yilgarn Craton Lithology: Granitoid gneiss; orthogneiss 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
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