Upper Gascoyne Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Upper Gascoyne Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

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The Shire of Upper Gascoyne is inland from Carnarvon and 1000 kilometres north of Perth. It covers 57 939 square kilometres, and has a population of 334 (2011).

The only town in the shire is Gascoyne Junction, on the normally dry Gascoyne River, in the southern portion of the shire. A severe flood in December 2010, washed away most of the town apart from the concrete foundations. What followed was chest high green grass in the desert, an explosion of wildlife, then when the grass died a fire which swept across a vast area till it reached the coast at Carnarvon. Gascoyne Junction is presently being rebuilt and is due for completion by October 2013. This will include tourist facilities. The shire also contains two indigenous communities, which make-up 46% of the population.

The economy is based on the pastoral industry and tourism. Attractions include gorges on the eastern side of the Kennedy Ranges, along the shire's western border. In the Shire's north is Mount Augustus, the largest monocline in the world. The countryside varies from flat plains with isolated hills, to hilly country and mountain ranges. The area is semi-arid, remote, lacks water and a 4 wheel drive is essential.

The shire contains many prospects, but none have been sufficiently big to warrant large scale mining. As such it is ideal for fossicking. The central area of the shire called Yinnietharra dominates in this regard, being an area of many pegmatites and other deposits. Internationally, brown and black dravite from the Socklich mine, and crystals sold as schorl from Mica King South, are in private collections, both originally in the early 1970's (there is an ongoing discussion over the specific identity of some tourmaline crystals). There would probably be many specimens in local collections from the area, rarely though seen in public, and what happens to them remains a mystery. As far as official material produced by specimen miners, this includes dravite, schorl, corundum, rose quartz, amethyst, diopside, magnetite crystals, and tauteuxenite. Apart from Yinnietharra, variscite was sold internationally briefly in 2006 from the Woodlands deposit, in the north-east corner of the shire.

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

121 valid minerals. 2 (TL) - type locality of valid minerals.

Rock Types Recorded

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