Granny Smith Gold Mine, Mount Weld Station, Laverton Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Granny Smith Gold Mine	Mine
Mount Weld Station	Mountain
Laverton Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

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Open-pit gold mine.

Discovered in 1979 by Ray Smith and named after his wife, Laurende, who had just become a grandmother. The mine has nothing to do with apples. Production began at Granny Smith in 1989 by Delta Gold Limited, who became Auriongold Ltd in 2002, and was taken over by Placer Dome Inc in 2003, who was taken over by Barrick Gold in 2006. In 2013 the mine was sold to South African based Goldfields ltd.

The mine is 25 kilometres south of Laverton. It is now abandoned but still contains the processing plant for other nearby deposits which includes Goanna 500m north, Windich 800m south, Wallaby and its southern extension Just-in-Case 11 kms west, Sunrise Dam 30kms south, Jubilee 20 kms south, Keringal 15 kms south, Phoenix 2 kms north-west and Childe Harold 4 kms north-west (approximate from the Granny Smith processing plant). The mine manager from 2010 to at least 2013 is Julie Shuttleworth.

Granny Smith lies in the Laverton Tectonic Zone of major north-south shears and associated faults. Goanna, Granny Smith and Windich are on the same lode continuous for 3500 metres, but only economic at the three sites. The Granny Smith portion strikes at 1500 metres, with the ore zone 600 x 250 x 30 metres, dipping east at 25 degrees.

The upper regolith contains initially topsoil of gravel colluvium of banded iron formations, quartz and ferruginous nodules. Next is the hardpan of cemented red-brown colluvium and clays. Then saprolite being weathered bedrock in red-brown clays, with red-orange ochre, with veins and seggregations of calcite. The inclusion of carbonate in the saprolite is unusual. A granitoid intrusion outcrops west of Granny Smith and underlies much of the metasediments. Mafic metavolcanic rocks are to the west and metasedimentary and felsic metavolcanic rocks to the east. Gold occurs at Granny Smith in the epiclastic sediments.

Gold is rarely visible, and depleted in the upper 20 metres of the zone. It is found in greatest concentrations where the shear contacts the overlying sediments, and a composite diorite-granitoid intrusive. Gold is present as discrete interstitial grains, blebs and clusters in quartz and minor ankerite filled micro fractures. There is a close relationship between the gold and the quartz-diorite body, and is intimately associated with the calcite. Gold is most abundant in the hardpan, and shows no supergene enrichment.

Commodity List

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

Mineral List

22 valid minerals.

Rock Types Recorded