Mount Charlotte Gold Mine, Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Kalgoorlie-Boulder Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Mount Charlotte Gold Mine	Mine
Kalgoorlie-Boulder	- not defined -
Kalgoorlie-Boulder Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

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A gold mine owned by Homestake Mining Co. (48%) and Kalgoorlie Mining Assoc. Workings feature a 1,200 meter deep shaft. 394,000 tons ore yielded 1,700 kg Au (1984).

(2013) mine half owned each by Barrick Gold and Newmont who also own and operate the Superpit nearby. Located at the top of Hannan Street and very near the town, and the original gold discovery by Paddy Hannan. Named after the hill the mine is on, and has been mined almost continuously from around 1894. The orebodies are Charlotte, and Reward, with satellite orebodies Maritana and North Charlotte. The mine is very near the Golden Mile, and accesses the same geology, but is viewed as separate from the old historic Golden Mile mines.

The gold occurs in quartz vein systems, as a series of steeply plunging pipe-like vein stockwork orebodies in metagabbro of the Golden Mile dolerite. The Fimiston and Oroya Lodes (see Fimiston Mindat locality) cut the ore. The mineralisation is controlled by district scale north north-east trending strike slip faults.

The Charlotte orebody goes down 800 metres from the surface, 250 metres north-south, and up to 100 metres east-west. Reward extends 800 metres down from the surface, 250 metres north-south, and 50 metres east-west. Both are restricted to units in the host sill and adjacent to major steeply dipping faults that have cut the sill. There is gold in pyrite or pyrrhotite bearing metagabbro around the veins, and to a lesser degree free gold in the veins, and along the vein margins. The pyrite zones contain carbonate-pyrite-pyrrhotite-muscovite-arsenopyrite, with tellurides virtually absent. Pyrite is found as scattered grains 1 to 2 mms wide. Gold is found at the margins of the quartz veins, or bordering pyrite crystals, and along fractures in pyrite grains.

Silver rich D2 shear zones as part of the Golden Mile Fault at level 22 is described in one source, with tellurides hessite and altaite.

The stockwork of veins tends to be thin, but grouped together form ore shoots tens of metres wide, hundreds of metres in strike (east-west) and depth.

Veins developed during brittle fracture, resulting from movement on the Charlotte, Reward and Maritana Faults and then extended by hydrofracturing during the ingress of the mineralised fluids, and channelled by oblique faults.

Mineralisation in fractures is confined to the granophyric Unit 8 of Golden Mile Dolerite, including veins 2 to 20 cms thick, averaging 8 cms, densely packed with less than 1 metres separating them. Alteration zones cover up to 100 cms from the veins.

Commodity List

This is a list of exploitable or exploited mineral commodities recorded at this locality.

Mineral List

30 valid minerals.

Rock Types Recorded