Ardlethan mineral field, Ardlethan, Bourke Co., New South Wales, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Ardlethan mineral field	Mining Field (Inactive)
Ardlethan	Town
Bourke Co.	County
New South Wales	State
Australia	Country

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A major tin and gold field, centred around the town of Ardlethan. Originally worked for gold and later tin.

Cassiterite was discovered by James Joseph Keogh in 1912, who pegged the White Crystal lease, and two days later the nearby Carpathia lease. For years local farmers had been clearing or ignoring heavy iron encrusted cassiterite boulders, believing them to be worthless.

The most successful mines were the White Crystal, Carpathia, and Wild Cherry (New Venture), all within a small area seven kilometres north-west of Ardlethan. Shortly after the initial discovery, Bygoo to the north, and Bald Hill to the south were discovered. While some leases in these areas produced a small amount of tin, they were not as rich as the Carpathia Hill area. The discoveries led to a tin-rush, boom and bust.

The Carpathia Hill leases were run by companies, who erected processing plants, and were actively mining until the outbreak of the World War Two years.

The Ardlethan Tin NL took over the Carpathia Hill area, and mined via a series of open cuts from 1964-1986. Mining eventually went underground and continued through to the late 1980s. The tin mine was reopened in late 2001, particularly for alluvial mining, but closed in mid-2004. Several companies subsequently looked at re-processing the tailings. Australian Tin Resources Pty Ltd in 2024 erected a pilot plant to test reprocessing of the tailings.

In 2015, with local government support, a plan was raised to dump Sydney rubbish into the pits. One councillor stated 'its like a bombs gone off out there, its a hell of a mess', apparently oblivious to the mess 400 000 tonnes of rubbish would cause. Local community opposition ended the plan.

While only a few specimens have been seen from the area, early NSW Geological reports indicate several possibilities, including widespread and common schorl-dravite; well formed brown to black cassiterite crystals; quartz crystals in small voids at the White Crystal Mine; gemmy or pale coloured fluorite crystals; sharp blue, colourless, or pale yellow topaz crystals at several locations; and an un-identified yellow-green mineral, possibly koechlinite, as per a photo posted on Mindat. Arsenopyrite, cookeite, siderite and muscovite specimens are also possible. Most of the locations are on private properties.

Host rocks are Mine Granite (biotite granite), Ardlethan Granite (pink to white, with alteration zones of sugary quartz-tourmaline rock carrying limited pods of cassiterite as rod like shoots), and in the Carpathia Hill area garnetiferous quartz-feldspar porphyry.

The cassiterite is associated with sulphides, which presented difficulties for early miners to process for the tin content. Much of the cassiterite is found in north-south trending quartz-tourmaline bodies, dipping west 70-80 degrees, where joints in the granite intersect the pipes.

Commodity List

This is a list of exploitable or exploited mineral commodities recorded from this region.

Mineral List

Mineral list contains entries from the region specified including sub-localities

24 valid minerals.

Rock Types Recorded

Rock list contains entries from the region specified including sub-localities