Wangatinya Manganese Prospect, Cleland Hills, MacDonnell Region, Northern Territory, Australia

Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	23° 37' 36'' South , 131° 14' 34'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-23.6268842769, 131.243054591

The Wangatinya manganese prospect is 280 kilometres west of Alice Springs, and about 20 kilometres roughly north-east of the Cleland Hills, in a north-west trending set of low hills. It is very remote, with at best faint mining company exploration tracks from decades past, and worse no tracks at all. Permission to visit the area is needed from the Haasts Bluff aboriginal land trust. Attempts to reach the site should not be considered unless you have a death wish, and the prospect would hold no interest for mineral specimens anyway.

Manganese is hosted within the basal portion of the late Cambrian Pacoota Sandstone. The quartz-sandstone host is friable, weathered, of shallow marine origin, dipping 60-65 degrees north.

The manganese and iron is found as a series of massive, bedding concordant lenses. The largest is 53 metres long by 6 metres thick. These lenses and pods are confined to two beds totalling 30 metres thick, and to 260 metres long. A network of manganese veinlets envelopes the lenses, and infills fractures and joints between. Mineralisation is pyrolusite, psilomelane, goethite and limonite. Manganese grades at 44.3% Mn average, with 9 samples 13.6%-55% Mn. (Modat lists scheelite for the location, although the reason is unknown).

Mindat map very approximate.

Mineral List

3 valid minerals.

Rock Types Recorded

Entries shown in red are rocks recorded for this region.

References