Wiluna Mining Project, Wiluna, Wiluna Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Wiluna Mining Project	Group of Mines
Wiluna	Town
Wiluna Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

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Located approximately 3 km south of Wiluna.

This goldfield contains several open pits and three underground operations covering numeous lodes in a north-south strike for approximately four kilometres. From the south the deposits are Wiluna Queen, East Lode South, East Lode Main, East Lode North, West Lode, Calvert, Burgundy, Calais, Happyjack, Creekshear, Queenie, Henry 5/Baldric, Woodley 200, Squib, Bulletin South, Bulletin (see separate Mindat heading), and Lonehand. The largest pit is East, and the three underground operations are East Lode, Happy Jack and Bulletin. There are about 15 kilometres of underground workings. Many of the pits are abandoned and filled with salt water.

Gold was discovered in the area in 1896 by prospectors George Woodley, James Wotton, and Jimmy Lennon. On 29 December 1897, the largest nugget discovered to that point in Western Australia at 460 oz was found on the Wiluna gold mine site.

From this point a mine was developed by Wiluna Gold Mines Limited but it closed around 1920 due to difficulties in processing the refractory ore. In 1924 the mine re-opened again at the behest of entrepreneur Charles de Bernales but closed again in 1947.

From 1987 to 1994 gold was mined from several open pits, and underground from 1994. Wiluna Gold Mines was taken over by Great Central Mines in 1998, and from this point there was a revolving door of mine owners.

Normandy took over Great Central Mines in 2000. Normandy was taken over by Newmont Mining Corporation in 2002. In 2003, Agincourt purchased the mine, and then shortly after this Growitt Limited purchased Agincourt. In 2007 Oxiana purchased the mine, but changed its mind and sold it only three months later to Apex Minerals.

Apex re-opened the mine in 2008. It struggled to 2013, when eventually costs outweighed any profits and the receivers stepped in. The mine was sold to Blackham Resources in January 2014.

The Wiluna gold project exploits a series of individual north-south running loads in low grade metamorphosed prehnite-pumpellyite facies mafic and ultamafic lava flows. The lodes are controlled by the Wiluna strike-slip fold system, which trends north north-east, and dips to the west and east.

Gold is found on dilational jogs, divergent bends, and horsetail splays, with shoots plunging moderately to steeply south. Gold is located in ore and net veined breccia and brecciated veins, containing chalcedony, carbonates, fuchsite, arsenopyrite, pyrite and stibnite. The Lone Hand section is reported by Gibb-Maitland to contain in the upper levels stibnite and stibiconite.

The Miluna Mining Project comprises around 20 open pits and 3 underground mines and operated by Wiluna Mining Corporation (2021).

The operations still centre around the Matilda Gold Mine which is 3 kilometres south of Wiluna, and about 2 kilometres west of the Goldfields Highway. Ownership in the past has been linked with the Wiluna Gold Mine. The site contains several abandoned open pits called M2 the furthest north then trending south is M4, M3, M1 in that order, with M5 a small pit immediately west of M3.

The mine was previously named Mount Wilkinson, and was developed by Chevron in the late 1980s, then Eon Metals NL in the early 1990's. Mining ceased in 1992. Total production was 2.66 Mt @2.3 g/t for 163 000 ounces of gold. Mining recommenced in August 2016 from seven shallow pits.

The Matilda Mine encompasses 10 km of strike along the highly prospective Coles Shear. There are some historical workings comprising a series of shallow open pits to an average depth of 50 m over a strike length of approximately 3.5 km. The gold mineralisation is associated with mafic shear zones and saddle reefs with supergene gold occurring within the zone of oxidation. Mineralisation remains open both along strike and at depth.

Commodity List

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Mineral List

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

21 valid minerals.

Rock Types Recorded

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