Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	22° 42' 37'' South , 119° 20' 51'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-22.71022,119.34758
GeoHash:	G#: qeuygcdr2
Köppen climate type:	BWh : Hot deserts climate

Iron ore prospect, and potential near future mine. Located 100 kilometres north-west of Newman, and about 10 kilometres south-west of the Marillana pastoral station homestead. Owned by the Chinese backed Brockman Resources, headquartered in Hong Kong.

For several years the company has been threatening to open a mine here. It has not come to fruition yet, but Brockman are hanging in there, when several near producers gave up the ghost in recent years. Where the continual steam of money is coming from is open to speculation.

Brockman had wanted to use Fortescue Metals railway line to Port Hedland. This was blocked in the courts, despite Fortescue having its own battle with BHP Billiton years before to use their line for its own ore. Brockman in the long term are planning to construct their own railway line. A plague of these have appeared across the landscape in recent years. The two major companies allow the public to use the railway access roads, if a permit is obtained. It is still difficult now to travel east-west across Pilbara backroads, as within a short distance progress is blocked by a railway line.

In the near term, Brockman plan to open a small scale mine at the location. The ore body is channel ore deposits and detritals, capable of 42 Mtpa for 25 years. There are three ore bodies identified namely North West Sector, Rockhole Bore, and Abalone.

Named as the Maverick Project, this small scale operation would produce 25 Mtpa, commencing production in 2018 (the company has made several similar promises for commencement dates in prior years). The pit design achieves 29.4 Mt of ore over a 5 year period. Iron ore grade 60.5-61.5% Fe. Ore would be carted to Port Hedland by 60 metre, 4 trailer road trains, set to terrorise tourists trying to use local roads. Brockman have stated they are happy to start small with small profits, as they want to prove themselves as producers.

The deposit is large at 1.63Bt hematite detrital and channel ore, consisting of JORC Measured 173 Mt, Indicated 1238 Mt, and Inferred 219 Mt. At 20 Mtpa the mine would have a life of 20 years.

Mineral List

1 valid mineral.

Rock Types Recorded

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

Holocene 0 - 0.0117 Ma ID: 724141

alluvium 38485 Age: Anthropocene (0 - 0.0117 Ma) Description: Channel and flood plain alluvium; gravel, sand, silt, clay; may be locally calcreted 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]

Siderian - Neoarchean 2300 - 2800 Ma ID: 3185955

Archean-Paleoproterozoic sedimentary and volcanic rocks Age: Precambrian (2300 - 2800 Ma) Stratigraphic Name: Hamersley Group Comments: Hamersley Basin Lithology: Strataform assemblage(s); felsic volcanic rocks; chert,carbonate,iron formation,shale 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