Blue Moon Gold Mine, Tennant Creek, Barkly Region, Northern Territory, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Blue Moon Gold Mine	Mine
Tennant Creek	Creek
Barkly Region	Region
Northern Territory	Territory
Australia	Country

The Blue Moon gold mine was pegged initially in 1935, by Phillip Ward, his wife Mary Ward, and Mary's brother Stuart McIntyre. Phillip was a stockman from Queensland, and Wyndham Western Australia, before turning his attention to prospecting around the Tennant Creek area. They mined the deposit until 1942, achieving gold worth 140 000 pounds, enough to buy the Banka Banka pastoral station in the region. At various times into the 1950's, several companies took options over the mine with little success.

Patrick Frances Young and Charles Owen Thomas in 1953, successfully applied for forfeiture of the mine, the warden finding little recent work was being conducted on the lease by the Wards. By this point the mine had produced 3600 tonnes of ore for 12 360 ounces of gold.

During the 1960's and 1970's, the mine was operational sporadically. In 1971, its noted as one of only two operating gold mines in the Tennant Creek area. Around 1956 the mine was purchased by George Graves for 25 000 pounds, who then erected machinery and built a dam (Blue Moon 411E, 14 acres, Blue Moon North, East, North Extended and West all 7 acres each). W.G. MacLean acquired the lease in 1965, conducting some mining, and is still mentioned as owning the mine in 1976. Three shafts are mentioned at this time to 135, 106 and 57 feet depth.

From the early 1950's, to mid 1970's, at least twelve geology studies were conducted relating to the mine and surrounding area. Really there was one rich shoot, mined by the Wards, then little else.

From the top down is hematite shale; cherty shale; sedimentary breccia fragments in fine grained greywacke with interbedded red siltstone; brown purple fawn coloured mudstone with narrow bands of white clay, and narrow bands of dark red chert, with minor hematite and fine grey ash; brown siltstone and lithic greywacke with mudstone, many quartz veins with hematite margins; hematite shale, green tuffaceous greywacke/mudstone.

Gold is found in ironstone lodes. Four of these are found at Blue Moon, but only Lode No. 1 has produced significant gold. This consists of micaeous and specular hematite with quartz, black dense siliceous hematite, limonitic jasper. The ore shoot is found at the crushed and shattered core of the ironstone body. The shoot has been mined out.

The Blue Moon gold mine is 26 kilometres east of Tennant Creek, in an area of isolated steep sided ironstone or jasper hills, forming part of the Quartz Hill/Rocky Range shear zone. The mine is reached by taking a track eastwards from the Tennant Creek repeater station. This passes several other old mines along the way. A 4 wheel drive is essential. The mine appears to be on the north side of an isolated hill, little more now than a cleared area, with possibly some shafts.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

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