Halls Creek Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Halls Creek Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

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The Shire of Halls Creek is 2 873 kilometres north-east of Perth, and covers 142 908 square kilometres. The shire's eastern boundary is the Northern Territory border. Northern boundary is the Warmun indigenous community, its western boundary about 100 kilometres east of Fitzroy Crossing, and the shire stretches south into the northern Tanami Desert. In comparison it is slightly larger than England (130 390 square kilometres),and slightly smaller than Illinois (149 998 square kilometres). The shire only has one town being Halls Creek itself with 1 300 residents. There are a number of small indigenous communities in the shire. The economy is based on the pastoral industry exporting cattle to Indonesia, mining and tourism.

The town was founded as a historic gold mining centre, although the fields were never very rich, and miners drifted to larger finds further south in Western Australia. The town was completely moved 15 kilometres in the 1960's so it could be sited on the Great Northern Highway. Attractions within the shire include the stupendous Bungle Bungles in the Purnululu National Park, China Wall, old Halls Creek, Palm Springs, and Wolfe Creek meteorite crater, the second largest in the world.

Tropical savannah woodland dominates the vegetation, with pockets of rainforest in the gorges, grading to desert in the south. The northern and western portions of the shire are rugged and mountainous encompassing the south-eastern portion of the Kimberley Plateau. Geology speaking, the central part of the shire falls within the Lamboo Complex as part of the Halls Creek Orogeny. To the east near the Northern Territory border is the Antrim Volcanics or Antrim Plateau. In the south-east is the Granites-Tanami Province, and remaining areas south is the Canning Basin.

The Sally Malay nickel mine is in the northern portion of the shire, and the Tanami gold mine is the far south-east, as major mines. A number of historic small gold mines and prospects are east, north and south-west of Halls Creek. Amethyst and quartz specimens are seen from Flora Valley, and meteorites from Wolfe creek, in private collections.

As with much of Western Australia, a warning has to be issued that many areas of the shire are remote and travellers should be prepared. In the Australian summers months the temperatures are high, with the added issue of torrential rain in the northern part of the shire, making any movement impossible.

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

118 valid minerals. 3 (TL) - type locality of valid minerals.

Rock Types Recorded

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