Viking Gold Mine, Norseman, Dundas Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Viking Gold Mine	Mine
Norseman	Town
Dundas Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

The deposit was first noted with A. Forbes and party from September 1894, then A.L. Seman, who sold the lease to Norseman Gold Mines Limited.

Norseman Gold Mines purchased the lease in March 1896, about 1.5 kilometres south-east of Norseman. They sank a new shaft and conducted development work across 1899 to 1901, then abandoned the project. During this period the shaft had reached 574 feet deep, on a 3 foot wide reef, with some pyrites and galena, iron sulphides, zinc, and lead, with 12 dwt gold/silver.

Tributers were active at the site intermittently for the next 30 years. This included Schertsinger, Motherston and party 1902; J.R. Scholey, F.C. Ide and Bigbey 1908; Evans, Baird, Vallency and Esmonde as the Viking No.1 Syndicate 1909; J.V.W. Mathers 1910; the Viking Syndicate 1916; Sutherland, Arnold and party 1921; J.H. Johnson 1926, and a Kalgoorlie/Norseman local syndicate of residents in 1928.

In 1933, Central Norseman Gold Mines sampled the 3000 tonnes of tailings left at the mine. The company unwatered the old shaft in 1937, and deepened the shaft. To 1927, 51 310 tonnes of ore for 50 681 ounces of gold had come from the mine. The late 1930's development did not add much to that total.

Pyrites are reported from the bottom of the main shaft. It is sunk on the Norseman line of reefs. There is a considerable amount of silver in the reef due to the presence of galena. The quartz is white and sometimes slightly blue. Calcite frequently occurs near the main shaft, and small quantities of cobaltian wad. The country rock is amphibolite. Parts of the quartz reef near the main shaft is vuggy, the voids filled with halloysite. This comes out of the ground moist and with a greenish tint. On exposure to air it rapidly turns brown, becomes waxy, then dry and granular. A large porphyry dyke occurs at the mine with off-shoots off its southern side. A split in the reef occurs south of the dyke.

Recent history has seen a gold exploration project 18 kilometres south-east of Norseman also called Viking, but it is different to the historic mine closer to town.

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