Rankin Prospect, The Gardens Station, Central Desert Region, Northern Territory, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Rankin Prospect	Prospect
The Gardens Station	- not defined -
Central Desert Region	Region
Northern Territory	Territory
Australia	Country

The prospect consists of two deposits, 300 metres apart. Both are at the same stratigraphic level in a steep south plunging fold. The smaller lense is 60 metres long by 10 metres wide, adjacent to banded magnetite-quartz rock, calc-silicates, and amphibolite.

The lense shows malachite and chrysocolla staining in martite, quartzose, granular, gossan, weathered coarse anthophyllite quartzite, and magnetite, with much of the amphibolite altered to chlorite and biotite. (Freytag) adds marble, magnetite-calcite, and quartz-sericite schist. The country rock is hornblende-magnetite-plagioclase granulite, and biotite-garnet schist.

The larger lense to the north is part of a ridge of banded anthophyllite-tremolite-magnetite quartzite, with malachite and galena associated with marble. There is a small pit on copper stained gossanous calc-silicate outcrop of schistose biotite-chlorite-muscovite-carbonate-quartz rock. To the north and south is strongly sheared garnet-chlorite-sericite schist, and hornblende-epidote-biotite-chlorite-plagioclase granulite.

Copper grades range from 16% Cu at the surface to 4% where secondary copper passes into primary mineralisation of chalcopyrite and bornite (Pigott). This gives the impression the prospect is copper, however (Freytag) at a later day focusses on lead and zinc, with some secondary copper. The deposit tested as 2.5% Pb and 1.2% Zn, with the hornblende schist up to 20% volume magnetite-pyrite-galena-sphalerite.

(Clarke) in 1971 states the deposit is found in quartz-magnetite gneiss, schists, marble, amphibolite, and leucocratic acid gneiss.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References