Wheal Doria Gold Mine, Tennant Creek, Barkly Region, Northern Territory, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Wheal Doria Gold Mine	Mine
Tennant Creek	Creek
Barkly Region	Region
Northern Territory	Territory
Australia	Country

The Wheal Doria Gold Mine was one of the early leases on the goldfield, pegged in 1933. It borders the western side of the Tennant Creek town site, immediately west of Town Hill. Shortly after discovery, the mine was optioned to the Livesay Gold Mines Company of Adelaide. They did not exercise the option, and by 1938, two young prospectors named Norman Crowther and William Gregory had taken over the mine on tribute. They discovered a new lode, and in 7 weeks had crushed 65 tonnes of ore at 4.5 oz to the tonne worth 3000 pounds in 1938 money.

Immediately after the war Cole and Minogue (surnames) were putting through crushings. Then in the late 1940's, Jim English controlled the lease. Jim had made an enemy for some unreported reason, as on several separate occasions, equipment was damaged- the compressor was destroyed with a sledgehammer, cooling and other equipment damaged, shed set alight. To 1948, the lease had produced 1831 tonnes of ore for 1720 ounces of gold.

Northern Mines Development NL drilled the deposit in 1953 with variable results. Later explorers were Peko-Wallsend, Truscott and Roebuck Resources/North Flinders Mines.

The mine is found in a structural corridor of a complex set of shears, trending east-west, from Town Hill west to the Gibbet mine. Within this is magnetite-hematite ironstone bodies, set within talc-chlorite-carbonate, within a shear envelope. The shear has developed at the southern border of the Aerodrome greywacke with finer sedimentary rocks.

Limonite is abundant, disseminated (un-named) sulphides, with some manganese oxides, and minor secondary copper. Underlying the ironstone is shale, contorted by a series of western pitching small drag folds, and 'pull-apart' chert. Layers of fine grained sericitic siltstone, with limonite banding.

Extending to the north is a porphyry unit trending north north-east, with a sharp contact with the ironstone. Most of the quartz veins are associated with the porphyry intrusion. One source notes minor dark green tourmaline (verdelite) in this unit.

A Wheal Doria specimen examined in the sources showed pale greenish talcose ore, chlorite schist, talc, martite, abundant magnetite, hematite, quartz, minor limonite, a thin sheet of gold. Most of the gold was secondary enrichment, however some was primary, being embedded in the quartz.

Testing of Wheal Doria by Truscott MIning showed 0.42% Pb, 0.18% Zn, 2.52% Cu, and up to 17.6 g/t Au from rock chip sampling.

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References