Fortnum Gold Mine, Peak Hill Mining District, Meekatharra Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Fortnum Gold Mine	Mine
Peak Hill Mining District	Mining District
Meekatharra Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

(Map- former town of Peak Hill, and Peak Hill gold mines are to the south-east of the location Google Maps have placed it).

Gold mine appoximately 40 kilometres north-west of Peak Hill, and 20 kilometres north-west of the Horseshoe Mine.

Perilya Mining purchased Fortnum in 1994 and in six years produced 540 000 oz of gold until the mine closed in 2001. Gleneagle Gold re-opened the mine in 2006 however only one year later the company went into receivership and the mine closed. The mine was sold to Eagle Gold Mine Limited in 2007, but this company also went into receivership in 2009, and is now renamed Grosvenor Gold Pty Ltd. Reports in early 2012 state the mine was sold to junior mining exploration company Resource and Investment NL, with plans to re-open the mine mid 2013. When the writer visited the location in mid 2014, there was no activity.

Fortnum is hosted in the Glengarry Sub-Basin, with mineralization associated with pyritic quartz-hematite jasperoid in the upper part of the Narracoota Volcanics, locally overlain by a volcaniclastic sequence and the Thaduna Greywacke.

D34 Shear and the Fortnum Fault are two large structural breaks cutting the sequence in the area. D34 is 100 metres wide and contains the bulk of the gold which is found in four styles. Sheeted quartz-pyrite-magnetite-hematite vein sets and replacements of mafic volcanics producing jasperoid; quartz veins and sulphidic replacement bodies along bedding planes in sediments; quartz veins and intense sericite alteration in schists in the shear zone; and in the laterite profile.

Labouchere and Deep South are hosted in the Labouchere Formation, which occurs in the hanging wall of the Horseshoe Banded Iron Formation, and Narracoota Volcanics. The deposit contains two stratabound pyritic chert bands representing the same unit on two limbs of a fold. The main lode is 200 metres long, up to 35 metres wide and dips 75 degrees east. Gold bearing pyrite is oxidised to 100 metres depth. The east load is narrower and sporadically mineralised adjacent to a shear zone.

Deep South is associated with silicified shales with abundant fine to coarse grained euhedral pyrite as laminae.

The area contains 10 pits, with ore carted to a central processing plant. The site also contains an accommodation village, and bitumen airstrip. Several rehabilitated tailings heaps borders the pits. A few kilometres north-west from the processing plant is the Labouchere Pit, 500 metres west north-west from the plant Nathan pit. Directly north of the plant is the largest pit being the co-joined Starlight and Trev's pits. Directly east of the plant are 3 tiny almost co-joined pits called Toms-Sams. Next to the plant on its south-west side is an equally tiny pit called Ricks. Some 300 metres south are two pits, one far larger than the other. These appear to have gone by several names, including Deep South, Yarlarweelor, D39, South Mine, D43, South-Central Mine.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References