Peter Pan Gold Mine, Tennant Creek, Barkly Region, Northern Territory, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Peter Pan Gold Mine	Mine
Tennant Creek	Creek
Barkly Region	Region
Northern Territory	Territory
Australia	Country

The Peter Pan gold mine was one of the early leases on the goldfield, and its discovery had much to do with the gold rush which subsequently left Alice Springs almost deserted in 1933. Discovered by Ernest Herbert Woodroffe, telegraph operator at Tennant Creek, who went prospecting in his spare time. Woodroffe did not have the ability to develop the deposit further than gold he found on the surface, and an old prospector called Bill Garnet sank a shaft discovering the cap of the reef, which sparkled with gold. Garnet had discovered the Mount Garnet field, and gem field at Anakie, both in Queensland. One source states shortly after in 1933, Alice Springs mailman, Sam Irving took over, after seeing prospectors at the lease pulling pieces of gold out of quartz with pliers.

Meanwhile, Woodroffe was not long for this world. In 1937, he was a cook at Coniston Station, 106 miles north-west of Tennant Creek. Edward (Ted) Baker was a stockman at the station, and the two got into an argument. Baker drew an automatic pistol and shot Woodroffe in the groin. Baker then set fire to his hut, shot himself, falling into and being incinerated by the flames. Woodroffe died a little later from complications from his injuries.

The lease was soon on option to the newly formed Adelaide company Peter Pan Gold Mines NL, with an option to purchase for 18,000 pounds. Some development work took place of two shafts and costeaning. The option was never exercised leaving workers with nine days pay owing. The company's accountant/director Claude Hamilton Fisher subsequently successfully sued Alice Springs publican Joseph Kilgariff for slander and libel, over a telegram sent to Fisher complaining about the missing wages.

The mine was worked by tributers with crushing information found until 1936. Over this time 138.10 tonnes of ore was crushed for 49 ounces of gold. Crushings are found in the late 1940's by the English brothers.

In 1953, the Northern Mines Development NL, took an option over the lease, and several others nearby. In later decades Peko-Wallsend, Truscott Mining, and Roebuck Resources/North Flinders Mines explored the deposit.

Peter Pan is part of an east-west structural corridor containing the Big Ben, Wheal Doria and Gibbets mines, extending from the Tennant Creek town site, westwards. Peter Pan is one kilometre west of the town, and just north of the road to the TC8/Chariot/Malbec West mines.

The Peter Pan deposit is an magnetite-hematite ironstone body, with much manganese oxides, and little in the way of quartz, in a shear zone, containing abundant limonite. Some of the ironstone has a 'spongy' texture, in a slump breccia containing pink and red shale fragments, and water worn jasper fragments. The shear zone is talc-chlorite-carbonates, complex, at the southern margins of the Aerodrome Greywacke, where is meets other finer grained sedimentary rocks. Apart from gold, minor copper occurs at Peter Pan with malachite observed.

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