Kanowna Goldfield, Kalgoorlie-Boulder Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Kanowna Goldfield	Ore Field
Kalgoorlie-Boulder Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

This page is currently not sponsored. Click here to sponsor this page.

PhotosMapsSearchMineralogy

Kanowna is 25 kilometres north-east of Kalgoorlie. It is promoted as a ghost town, and being an easy drive from Kalgoorlie sees a lot of visitors. Invariably they leave dis-appointed. Most of the towns from the 1890's were built of corrugated tin and hessian, so when the gold ran out, the buildings were dismantled. There is little to see at Kanowna other than a cemetery and scrub. Visitors can view the Kanowna Belle operations from a lookout. For tourists wanting a 'ghost town experience' the writer recommends Ora Banda, Gwalia and Kookynie.

Gold and nickel mineralisation is found in the Kanowna area. For gold, it is found in veins, stockwork, lode, and deep leads.

For veins, the Kanowna Main Reef is the main host of thick quartz veins, found in sub-vertical shear zones in polymict conglomerate or ultramafic schist, parallel but not intersecting intrusive porphyry. Stockworks are only found in the intrusive 'boss', from which the dykes emanate, as a vertical stacked set of sub-horizontal quartz veins, 1 to 50 cms wide. Lodes contain altered and quartz veined mafic and ultramafic rock, and sediments in shear zones. Deep leads is gold bearing gravel in palaeo channels, up to 30 metres deep, variably cemented by kaolin, Fe oxide, and secondary silica. The channels had flowed from elevated ground to the west.

Nickel mineralisation is disseminated sulphides in a chlorite schist near its contact with a serpentinized ultrabasic intrusive rock (Moreland formation). Kanowna is the type locality for Tucekite. It was found as microscopic grains in mineralised chlorite schist. This would explain why no specimens have been seen (at least yet on Mindat) for the species from this location.

The tucekite bearing mineralisation forms a 2 cm thick zone of disseminated sulphides in chlorite schist, near its contact with a serpentinised ultramafic intrusive rock. Tucekite is associated with millerite, pyrite, chalcopyrite gersdorffite, pentlandite, magnetite and supergene polydymite. Tucekite occurs as rims and irregular grains partly replacing millerite. It was formed late through the reaction of Sb bearing solutions with millerite.

Kanowna is 25 kilometres north-east of Kalgoorlie. It is said the name is derived from a corruption of local aboriginal words for 'place of no sheep', referring to the rocky ground. Considering the local language would have no word from an introduced species, this explanantion is uncertain. The town was originally called White Feather, and it is assumed this was the result of a claim dispute between prospectors, where one party retreated.

In 1893, prospector Jerry McAuliffe, discovered a gold nugget here, leading to another goldrush. Sims and Gresson in 1897 discovered a rich layer of gold under bedrock east of the town. By 1900, the town had a population of 12 000, with 16 hotels and 2 breweries. Gold fever was at such a high pitch, they even took to digging up the cemetery.

Between 1893-1907 the field produced 152 000oz of gold, half from quartz veins adjacent to the town, and half from deep shoots both north and west of the town.

After 1914, the easily won near surface gold had been exhausted and the town rapidly declined in population. Lone prospectors and small scale mining continued, and finally had ceased by 1946. The last of the hotels closed in 1952, and the remaining parts of the town dismantled in 1959. Today all that remains is 2 cemeteries, and tourist information signs.

It is assumed the listing on Mindat for Kanowna Main Reef is referring to the historic workings.

Commodity List

This is a list of exploitable or exploited mineral commodities recorded from this region.

Mineral List

Mineral list contains entries from the region specified including sub-localities

30 valid minerals. 1 (TL) - type locality of valid minerals.

Rock Types Recorded

Rock list contains entries from the region specified including sub-localities