Armadale slate quarry, City of Armadale, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Armadale slate quarry	Quarry
City of Armadale	City
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

Located 1.6 km south east of Armadale. The quarry is located off the South Western Highway, along Marsh Road.

The quarry is 200 metres long by 90 metres wide covering 1.8Ha. It is sited on the Darling Scarp, which forms the western edge of the Yilgarn Craton.

The quarry was mined for brick clay between 1902 and 1930 producing
150 000 bricks per week. It was purchased by the City of Armadale in 1995 as an education geology resource.

The rocks seen in the quarry are from the Cardup Group, their formation poorly understood, but are thought to predate the Yilgarn Craton granite gneiss rocks. The Cardup Group is composed of three units. Lowermost is the Whitby Sandstone of quartz rich sandstone beds overlain by silty shale, in turn overlain by thinly bedded black and white shale. The sandtone contains stratomalitic structures. Above this is the Nerrigen Formation 20 metres of pale coloured sandstone and shale. The upper unit is called the Armadale Shale of black-grey to black shale grading to cream coloured and white shale. The quarry also contains dolerite intrusives.

The northern portion of the quarry shows the shale, while the southern portion the sandstone. The reference cites secondary green rocks in the quarry indicating the presence of copper in the shale, but makes no mention of lead minerals already listed against the locality.

The quarry is closed to the public and fenced. It is considered unstable, a tunnel in the quarry flooded, and stromatolites which could once be seen have been damaged over time and not easily discernable.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References