Mount Edon, Paynes Find, Yalgoo Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Mount Edon	Mountain
Paynes Find	- not defined -
Yalgoo Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

The centre of this area is 7 kilometres south south-west of Paynes Find. There are several large irregular shaped felsic pegmatites which have intruded into the Paynes Find Greenstone Belt, a north-east trending sequence of mafic, ultamafic and sedimentary rocks.

Exploration of the pegmatites started in 1965. From 1975-1978, Don and Mark Calderwood mined the Goodingnow feldspar and beryl pegmatites creating two pits. No other mining is noted. In 2002 Haddington International Resources Ltd explored the pegmatites but found them sub-economic. Good beryl crystal specimens in matrix have come from the pegmatites, but when the writer visited in 2012, no evidence of beryl could be seen on the surface of any of the locations.

The Goodingnow feldspar and beryl quarries are the easiest to reach of the group. They can be reached by taking the southern dirt road from Paynes Find towards the Goodingnow Station. The mullock piles can be seen west of the road. Northern pit GPS 566,507E 6,757,653N UTM50, AGD66, southern pit 566,497E 6,757,143N UTM50 AGD66. The pegmatite was mined for microcline, but owner Don Calderwood collected well crystallised green, tan and yellow beryl as specimens from the southern pit. Beryl was also found at the northern pit. The first record of phenakite in Western Australia came from the northern pit, where is occurs as a grey-white massive minor intergrowth with beryl.

The pegmatites are composed of microcline-perthite with sub-ordinate quartz, albite, and muscovite, and rarely zinnwaldite, beryl, hyalite and columbite. They have a thin fine grained contact zone, a wall zone of medium grained quartz-microcline-plagioclase, and an interior microcline core with milky-smokey quartz and small amounts of albite, muscovite and beryl. A small unit was also exposed in the northern pit containing beryl, spessartine, almandine, columbite and an un-identified thorium phosphate species.

The Mount Edon tantalite-lepidolite pegmatites. Northern 563,550E 6,775,978N UTM50 AGD66, south-western 563,705E 6,755,878N and southern pegmatite 563,730E 6,755,878N UTM50 AGD66. Some mining of tantalum ore took place till 1974. The south-west pegmatite is 60 metres long, striking north-west, 2-10 metres wide, and consists of albite, microcline and bright purple lepidolite with a quartz core. In 1969 fine rossettes of pumpellyite was found at the pegmatite. Manganotantalite is found around the pegmatite area.

The southern pegmatite is 80 metres long by 10 metres wide, of albite-perthite-microcline-quartz with clumps of lepidolite. The northern pegmatite is 100 metres long by 25 metres wide of microcline-quartz-muscovite zone, a sugary and cleavelandite albite zone, and several quartz core segments. Zinnwaldite,very fine grained purple lepidolite, beryl, possibly allanite, manganotantalite as spear-like and columnar crystals,and uranophane staining of the feldspar.

The Mount Edon tapiolite pegmatite, GPS 564,220E 6,755,350N UTM50 AGD66. Mined by Alfredo Pieri creating two small pits. The pegmatite is 150 metres long, 4-10 metres wide. Abundant fine to medium grained cystalline tapiolite associated with a quartz core and a border zone of quartz-muscovite with minor lepidolite.

The Mount Edon cleavelandite pegmatite. GPS 563,312E 6,756,860N UTM50 AGD66. Contains one shallow trench. The pegmatite consists of cleavelandite as radiating balls of platy blades surrounding milky quartz masses with the quartz very prominant at the surface. The pegmatite
contains albite, microcline, muscovite, quartz, clusters of thin tabular and elongated crystals of columbite and tantalite, and rarely beryl, epidote and an unknown white mineral with a hexagonal shape.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References