Pinnacles Mine, Tennant Creek, Barkly Region, Northern Territory, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Pinnacles Mine	Mine
Tennant Creek	Creek
Barkly Region	Region
Northern Territory	Territory
Australia	Country

Map sheets: Tennant Creek 100K Map.
Coordinates: 417200mE, 7826000mN.
Longitude = 134.210159
Latitude = -19.659484

Gold-copper mine. Located about 200 metres south of the Battery Hill Mining Museum (No. 3 government battery), in turn 3 kilometres south-east of the Tennant Creek town site. Unfortunately mines in the Tennant Creek area, have been subject to rehabilitation, and little remains at the Pinnacles site.

The deposit was discovered around 1933 by Malachi (Jack) Noble, who also discovered the Wheal Doria, Rising Sun and Noble's Nob deposits in the Tennant Creek area. A small wiry man, who was at times rich, the next day broke, typical of a hardened long term prospector. He sold the Pinnacles leases shortly after its discovery for 10 pounds so he could buy food.

The Euro Development Company developed the mine from this time until the late 1930's, sinking at least three shafts, a small pit, and much costeaning, in the process uncovering rich gold in several pockets.

One night in 1935, thieves broke into the safe, and then a nearby hut the director was sleeping in, stealing more money from his trouser pocket.

The first lease on the field was pegged by P. Ambrose in 1925, near the later named Shamrock mine. It was only with Noble's discoveries in 1933, that a gold rush set in. For two years the new settlement was a rough place, as young miners lived out their dreams of the American wild west they had seen in movies. Many wore guns on their hips, and gun battles over claim disputes was a common occurrence. Unemployment, cheap alcohol, heat, short tempers would lead to a death at some stage.

On September 30 1934, it was alleged Clifford William Antinos Renfrey shot dead Canadian miner Michael O'Brien. Stanley Potts and Renfrey were involved in a fight the previous day over a claim. Potts went to see Renfrey the next day, in the company of O'Brien, visiting the Pinnacles mine along the way to borrow a revolver from Vernan Thompson, proclaiming he would deal with Renfrey. On meeting, Renfrey produced a revolver. O'Brien ran for his car to retrieve his rifle, but was shot three times, and died shortly after. Meanwhile Renfrey floored Potts, and was then overpowered by another miner who arrived Patrick Bernard O'Leary.

Renfrey was later acquitted at trial in Alice Springs on a claim of self defence. Violent stories abound about Renfrey who readily settled disagreements with his fist. Shortly after the afore mentioned trial he was jailed for six months for assault. He listed his occupation in the 1935 census as 'grave digger'. At one point he was slashed across the face with a razor during a fight, requiring sixty stitches. He died in Darwin in 1978, and was buried at sea.

James David Stanley, and Arthur Bernard Traylen acquired the lease sometime between 1939 to 1943, and put through some crushings in the late 1940's. Local Indian identity Fazel Deen had a major interest in the mine. To 1947 the mine had produced 1158 tonnes of ore for 1015 ounces of gold.

The Northern Territory mines branch drilled at the site between 1961 to 1963. It describes the workings as shafts at the eastern end on gold, and an open pit in the central part of the lease for copper, now covered over.

The mine is at the eastern end of a series of low mesas, consisting of greywacke, siltstone and mudstone of the Warramunga Formation. On the hills, quartz blows and hematite outcrops in shear and crush zones. Gold, malachite, chrysocolla and cuprite is found in talc-chlorite phyllite and hematite, in north-east and east trending crush zones, in drag folded sedimentary rocks.

The deposit is 250 feet long, averaging 5 feet wide, pitching steeply west. The mineralised zone is massive hematite-magnetite, magnetite-amphibolite, talc-kaolin with much disseminated magnetite, talc-chlorite phyllite containing copper values, and ironstone at the eastern end. It is on the southern limb of an asymmetrical anticline, pitching west 20 degrees. The mines branch were unimpressed stating only low gold and copper values were found.

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References