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Kanowna Belle
Western Australia, WA, Australia
Main commodities:
Au
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Deposit Description
The Kanowna Bell is located 18 km east of Kalgoorlie, within the Eastern Goldfields, 570 km east of Perth in Western Australia, within the Archaean Norseman-Wiluna greenstone belt.
The deposit lies beneath a 40 m thick blanket of saprolite and is within a sequence that comprises a lower mafic-ultramafic sequence and an upper succession of felsic volcanics, polymictic conglomerate, felsic conglomerate and coarse felsic grits and arenites, with common porphyry intrusives.
The principal hosts are sediments within the felsic sequence and the Kanowna Belle feldspar porphyry. The alteration and mineralisation is predominantly associated with the porphyry.
The ore occurs as a series of stacked lenses, occurring as a series of plunging shoots over a strike length of between 250 and 350 m, a vertical extent of more than 1 km with a dip of 60°. It lies within a major ENE trending reverse shear system (the Fitzroy Shear Zone), and is associated with splays from this structure (oblique structures developed in its hangingwall). Shears and faults also influenced the introduction of the host porphyry.
The highest grades are associated with brecciation, silicification, pyritisation and crackle veining within the inner two alteration zones which comprise quartz-albite-pyrite and a more extensive sericite-ankerite-dolomite-pyrite-fuchsite. Gold levels are proportional to vein density and alteration intensity. 1 to 2 m thick zones of intense silicification correspond to >100 g/t Au. Native gold occurs on the margins of these veins as less than 1 mm grains. Much of the gold is free milling. Pyrite is the major sulphide, although arsenopyrite is the main accessory. The sulphur content of the ore is approximately 1%.
The operation commenced in 1993 with a resource of 22 Mt @ 5.7 g/t Au to a depth of 1000 m.
At the end of 1999 the resource was 24.27 Mt @ 4.1 g/t Au.
At December 31, 2007 the resource and reserve figures (Barrick 2008) were:
Proved + probable reserves - 9.05 Mt @ 5.43 g/t Au, for 49 t of contained Au,
Measured + indicated reserves - 4.40 Mt @ 4.98 g/t Au, for 21 t of contained Au,
Production during 2007 totalled - 11.26 t of recovered Au.
Description based on information available at, or was up to date when written in 2001.
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.
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| References to this deposit in the PGC Literature Service Collection: |  |
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Anonymous 1998 - Kanowna Belle (North): in Register of Australian Mining 1997/98 p 115
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Beckett T S, Fahey G J, Sage P W, Wilson G M 1998 - Kanowna Belle gold deposit: in Berkman D A, Mackenzie D H (Ed.s), 1998 Geology of Australian & Papua New Guinean Mineral Deposits The AusIMM, Melbourne Mono 22 pp 201-206
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Gellatly D C, Peachey T R, Ryall A W, Beckett S 1995 - Discovery of Kanowna Belle gold deposit - one the old-timers missed: in New Generation Gold Mines: Case Histories of Discovery, Conf. Proc., Perth, 27-28 Nov., 1995 AMF Adelaide pp 14.1-14.10
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Ross A A, Barley M E, Brown S J A, McNaughton N J, Ridley J R, Fletcher I R 2004 - Young porphyries, old zircons: new constraints on the timing of deformation and gold mineralisation in the Eastern Goldfields from SHRIMP UÐPb zircon dating at the Kanowna Belle Gold Mine, Western Australia: in Precambrian Research v128 pp 105-142
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| PGC Literature Compilations containing papers referring to this deposit: | |
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OzGold '97: Volume 1 - Archaean
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| This deposit has featured in the following PGC International Study Tour(s): |
OzGold '97 - Australian Gold Deposits
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