Southdown magnetite prospect, City of Albany, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Southdown magnetite prospect	Prospect
City of Albany	City
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

The Southdown magnetite prospect in 90 kilometres north-east of Albany, and forms a 12 kilometre long linear east-west deposit, cut in half by the South Coast Highway. It is located on cleared agricultural land, and forms a low ridge, more prominent to the west. Magnetite outcrops in only a few places along the strike.

The deposit was discovered in 1983, by an airborne survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Mineral Resources. Several companies explored the site during the 1980's. Tasmanian based Grange Resources acquired the site in November 2003. It conducted extensive drilling, feasibility studies, and gained approval to establish an open cut mine. The project was abandoned in 2013, before the mine could be developed, due to low iron ore prices.

The deposit is located in the Biranup Complex of the Albany-Fraser geological province. It is an east-west Proterozoic quartz-magnetite gneiss, and granulite hosted by quartz-biotite dominated metasedimentary rocks.

It occupies the core of a gently east plunging overturned isoclinal syncline, with a steep south dipping axial surface. This is offset by a series of moderately north-east dipping oblique dextral and reverse slip faults. The deposit is 70 to 100 metres thick, averaging 85 metres, and dips 60 to 65 degrees south.

It is overlain by mid to late Eocene sequence called the Plantagenet Group. The lower layer of this is dark grey siltstone, sandstone, claystone, and minor brown coal and limestone of the Werillup Formation. The upper section is silstone and spongolites of the Pallinup Formation. The Plantagenet Sequence is 0 to 50 metres thick, and up to 80 metres at the eastern part of the deposit.

The deposit as a JORC total resource of 1221 Mt at 34.1 % grade.

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References