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Chatterbox Group, Whisper, Rumour, Innuendo |
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Western Australia, WA, Australia |
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Au
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Super Porphyry Cu and Au
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IOCG Deposits - 70 papers
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The Chatterbox group of deposits, comprising, from north to south Rumour, Whisper and Innuendo, that are located 8 km west of Laverton, in Western Australia (#Location: 28° 38' 54"S, 122° 19' 18"E).
The deposits were discovered in 1997 in an area of no historic workings. The pits are now abandoned. They lie within the Kurnalpi Terrane of the Eastern Goldfields Superterrane of the Yilgarn Craton. They occur within the Margaret Domain, which also hosts the Mt Morgans, Jupiter, Lancefield and Wallaby gold deposits. This domain is predominantly composed of tholeiitic basalts and ultramafic rocks, with subordinate metasedimentary rocks, including BIF, intruded by dolerites, syenites, granitoids and felsic porphyries (Johnson, 2003).
Mineralisation, including the three deposits, predominantly comprises oxide gold occurrences spread over an 11 km section of the Chatterbox Shear Zone which extends for more than 25 km along the western boundary of the Laverton Tectonic Zone. The Chatterbox Shear Zone, which is a complex north-south striking east-dipping ductile-brittle fault zone on the eastern limb of the broad, SE plunging Margaret Anticline which dominates the Margaret Domain (Johnson, 2003).
The mineralisation of the Chatterbox Shear occurs over a strike of some 5.5 km, within a package of metacarbonates, sediments and felsic intrusives, overlying an ultramafic sequence. The sequence includes thin layers of banded iron formation or ferruginous chert. These rocks have been extensively intruded by adamellite and porphyry and deformed into tight upright folds, with extensive strike slip faulting. The hanging wall is tholeiites and banded iron formation. There is a widespread regolith blanket composed of superficial cover to depths of up to 60 m, underlain by oxidation extending to more than 100 m below the surface within the shear zone. The bulk of the resource occurs as extremely soft, intensely weathered rock types, to depths of less than 125 m. The water table is at a depth of only 25 metres from the surface. The shear zone is cross-cut and displaced by NE or NW striking faults, and has south-east steep dipping splays along its length (Johnson, 1999; 2003).
Gold is predominantly in the oxide zone, occurring as a series of NNE to north trending, moderately to steep east dipping, shallow south plunging lenses. Gold is associated with goethite-hematite-manganese oxide alteration, and quartz-carbonate veining, with open and dogtooth quartz crystals. There is a strong Au-As association with pervasive weak pyrite alteration (Johnson, 2003).
Primary gold is found in unoxidised metacarbonates.
In December 1998, resources amounted to 9.65 Mt @ 2.2 g/t Au.
The most recent source geological information used to prepare this decription was dated: 1999.
This description is a summary from published sources, the chief of which are listed below.
© Copyright Porter GeoConsultancy Pty Ltd. Unauthorised copying, reproduction, storage or dissemination prohibited.
Chatterbox
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Selected References:
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Johnson G I, Ryall A W 1999 - Innuendo, Whisper and Rumour - The Discovery of the Chatterbox Shear Gold Deposits: in New Generation Gold Mines 99, Case Histories of Discovery, Conf. Proc., Perth, Nov, 1999 AMF, Adelaide pp 15-27
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Johnson, G.I., 2003 - Chatterbox Shear Zone gold deposits, Laverton District, Westwern Australia: in CRC LEME online http://crcleme.org.au/RegExpOre/Chatterbox.pdf 3p.
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Porter GeoConsultancy Pty Ltd (PorterGeo) provides access to this database at no charge. It is largely based on scientific papers and reports in the public domain, and was current when the sources consulted were published. While PorterGeo endeavour to ensure the information was accurate at the time of compilation and subsequent updating, PorterGeo, its employees and servants: i). do not warrant, or make any representation regarding the use, or results of the use of the information contained herein as to its correctness, accuracy, currency, or otherwise; and ii). expressly disclaim all liability or responsibility to any person using the information or conclusions contained herein.
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