Jundee Goldfield, Wiluna Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Jundee Goldfield	Ore Field
Wiluna Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

The main focus of the goldfield is the Jundee Gold Mine at the northern end. Sometimes it is referred to as the Jundee-Nimary Gold Mine, as the two deposits were developed separately initially, before the mine was combined into a 2 kilometre east-west by 2 kilometre north-south collection of ten pits ranging from small to combined superpits in size. Further south-east by 8 kilometres is the Elliott Pit, a further 4 kilometres south-east the Area 7 Pit, and yet a further 15 kilometres south-east a collection of pits called the Gourdes-Vause. There are also a number of outlying prospects. All are north of the north-west to south-east trending Nimary Fault. The goldfield is approximately 50 kilometres north-east of Wiluna.

The goldfield is found in the northern section of the Yandal Greenstone Belt. Little exploration took place in the area before the early 1970's. From 1978, the leases were occupied by Chevron Exploration, who unsuccessfully explored for base metals, and relinquished the leases in 1983.

They were then pegged by well known local mining entrepreneur Mark Creasy, who had located gold bearing gossan. He entered an agreement with several others to form the company Mineral Estates, but failed to raise finance to explore the tenements, and they were surrendered for non payment of rent.

Creasy re-applied for the leases in 1985, and located a nugget field at Jundee. He approached Chevron to finance further exploration. After twelve months of procrastination, they withdrew support, and Creasy had to surrender the leases once more. Hunter Resources then picked up the Nimary part of the leases, while Creasy re-applied for Jundee.

In 1989, Creasy was able to finance a drilling programme, and by late 1991, Great Central Mines was on-board. By 1995, the Hughes, Main, Barton, North-West, Deakin, Fisher, Cook and Reid deposits had been discovered, with an estimated reserve of 15 million tonnes of ore at 2.7 g/t yielding 1.3 million ounces of gold.

In this year Great Central Mines purchased the deposit, and Bronzewing elsewhere in the region also owned by Creasy for A$117 million. Open pit mining commenced in 1995, the underground mining in 1997. Meanwhile Hunter Resources entered a joint venture and opened nearby Nimary. This mine was purchased by Great Central Mines October 1997 for A$330 million. In turn this company was taken over by Normandy Mining by May 1999. Newmont acquired Normandy early 2002. In May 2014 Northern Star Resources purchased the mine. More geology and detailed mine
description can be found under the Jundee Gold Mine Mindat locality.

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References