Bell Chambers Gold Mine, Sandstone, Sandstone Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Bell Chambers Gold Mine	Mine
Sandstone	- not defined -
Sandstone Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

The Bell Chambers area is located about 30 kilometres south-west of Sandstone, and consists of numerous shafts and trenches in a north-east to south-west line for about 5 kilometres, and running parallel 2 kilometres east of the Sandstone-Paynes Find Road.

Little early information could be found. It is mentioned in 1908, but only because a government party travelled through the area. Up to 1912, the area produced 700 tonnes for 1200 ounces of gold.

Reports states soon after the area was abandoned until late 1937. At this point two prospectors took out several crushings until 1939. In 1938 it was a total of 521 tonnes for 407.99 ounces of gold. The prospectors are named as Angelo Dichiera and Tom Digtuseppe (?) (Tom is likely an anglo nickname). Another source states the second name is T. Di Guiseppe.

The area was forgotten about again until modern times. Troy Resources purchased the tenements from Aquila Resources in 2002. Venus Metals began exploring the area in 2015. At the time of writing only general geology information is available from them. In early 2015, they announced a JORC Inferred resource of 219 000 tonnes of ore at 14 000 ounces at 2.0 g/t.

The Bell Chambers area sits within the Sandstone Archaean Greenstone Belt, on the western limb of a northerly plunging antiform. The western limb consists of an isoclinal folded greenstone sequence striking north north-east of tholeiitic metabasalt, metadolerite, metagabbro, shales, banded iron formations, pelites, quartzite, and banded cherts.

The upper portion contains the metabasalts, and within this are two banded iron formations (BIF), 200 to 300 metres vertical distance from each other. Metadolerite occupies the folded core, with the BIF in each limb of the syncline, about 1.5 kilometres apart. The lower portion of the western limb consists of komatiite and tholeiitic metabasalt units, separated by alternating dolerite and metagabbro intrusions.

The greenstone belt is bordered by granite and granodiorite, its contact with the greenstone strongly sheared, with granite dykes intruding the greenstone up to 150 metres from its contact.

The area contains major parallel north north-west striking shear zones, and easterly striking quartz reefs. The shear zones dip 50-85 degrees north-west, and strike for several kilometres, with dextral and sinistral strike slip displacement by up to 60 metres.

Gold is associated with the shear zones, with anomalous gold in the metabasalts and quartzite. High grade gold occurs in quartz ironstone stockwork, within or near the BIF.

The Bell Chambers workings are located on the Bell Chambers-Rangeview Trend, where gold is hosted with pyrrhotite, graphitic shale, and metabasalt.

The present exploration company fails to mention, the previous exploration company to them, came to grief when drilling in the area. The extremely fractured nature of the rocks caused caving, clogging of rods, extreme core loss and poor recoveries. The exploration was abandoned with no samples taken.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

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