Plenty River area, Huckitta Station, Central Desert Region, Northern Territory, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Plenty River area	Area
Huckitta Station	- not defined -
Central Desert Region	Region
Northern Territory	Territory
Australia	Country

An ephemeral watercourse draining the eastern part of the Harts Ranges, with some high grade metamorphic and igneous rocks.

Named on maps as the Plenty River Mining Area. Most of the locations are small historic mica mines, mainly between the Plenty River, and to the north Marshall River, both trending east-west, and north of the Huckitta pastoral station homestead. A few locations extend east into the now abandoned Jinka station, although the homestead remains.

The first period of mica mining started here between 1930-1935 before being abandoned. It was revived by the Commonwealth Government during World War Two, with spasmodic mining into the 1950's. This was mainly by small working syndicates of Italian miners. Trove contains pictures of a modern mica plant in the area in 1982, but more information is needed on this. Indeed, for individual mines, virtually no historic information was found, and limited workings and geology information. When geologists first investigated the field in the 1950's, many of the mines had been abandoned, and there was some confusion over mine names and locations.

Little appears to have changed, with the mines occupying a very small footprint, former tracks overgrown, and access dependent on the goodwill of the Huckitta Station owners. The mines were never big, lasted long, and were generally on small pegmatites containing limited mica. Most of the mica obtained was ruby mica.

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References