Coolgardie, Coolgardie Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Coolgardie	City
Coolgardie Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

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The town was founded in 1892 after gold was discovered in the area. The discovery resulted in a goldrush, one of several in Western Australia in the early 1890's. By 1898 the town was the third largest in Western Australia, with a population of 15 000, and another 10 000 in the surrounding area. Its substantial economic leverage at the time, forced Western Australia into the Australian federation. A 1933 referendum voted in favour of secession, although it was never implemented. It has been a recurrent theme in State politics.

In the early 1900's, the amount of easily recoverable gold began to decrease, and the town's population began to also decrease, until in the 1980's it was virtually a ghost town. The mining boom of the early 21st century has seen a reversal of the town's fortunes. It is a covenient base for exploring the many fossicking sites in the surrounding area. Several impressive historical buildings remain, with museums detailing the mining history of the area. One of these museums contains a substantial bottle collection from old mines and mining towns in Western Austalia. The main street contains a mineral specimen shop stocking local specimens.

The Archaean lode gold deposits in the Coolgardie area occur as 4 types:
1. Laminated quartz reefs (eg Bayleys, Kings Cross)
2. Narrow brittle ductile shear zones along porphyry-ultramafic rock contacts (eg Tindals)
3. Fault bounded quartz vein sets (eg Lindsays)
4. Gabbro hosted quartz vein sets (eg Three Mile Hill).

There are two styles of gold related wall alteration in the Coolgardie area:
1. High temperature garnet-hornblende-plagioclase-calcite-chlorite-K Feldspar, with pyrrhotite and minor sphalerite.
2. Medium temperature calcic amphibole- biotite-plagioclase-calcite with abundant arsenopyrite and pyrrhotite.

There is a remarkable work called The History of Western Australia, by Warren Bert Kimberley, published in 1897. An appendix in this was by Frederick Vosper, written sometime between 1893-1896, which lists the historic gold mine names in the immediate vicinty of Coolgardie. He makes an interesting observation as to what was being found in the area at the time:
' lignite and carbonaceous fossiliferrous stones have recently been discovered; the much talked of 'tellurides' have been found in small quantities about two miles from town; silver, lead, copper and graphite are frequently encountered, while the inferior sorts of precious stones, such as agate, jasper, chalcedony, garnet, chrysoprase, and opal are met with, the last name being frequently found in veins permeating solid quartz. Some of these minerals carry gold and the author has received specimens of agate, jasper and chrysoprase carrying visible gold. Asbestos, mica, actinolite and scheelite are also amongst the products of this remarkable district, which constitutes the perfect natural museum and a veritable happy hunting ground of the mineral collector.'

Frederick Vosper was the founder of the Western Australian branch of the Geological Society of Australasia, and an avid collector of mineral specimens. Over 1000 of these he donated to the Western Australian Museum, and the specimens described above must be hidden somewhere in their vaults.

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

58 valid minerals.

Rock Types Recorded

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