Warrawoona Gold Project, Marble Bar, East Pilbara Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Warrawoona Gold Project	Group of Mines
Marble Bar	- not defined -
East Pilbara Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

From Calidus Resources Ltd website, in 2020 "The Warrawoona Gold Project is situated in the East Pilbara district of the Pilbara Goldfield of Western Australia, approximately 150km south east of Port Hedland and approximately 25km south east of the town of Marble Bar.

Historically fragmented ownership has held back development of the area. Calidus now controls the entire Warrawoona Greenstone Belt with a total of 780km2 under its control. Since listing in mid-2017 with a resource of 411kozs, the Company has undertaken a systematic modern approach to exploration and tripled the resource base to its current 1.5 million ounces."

In 2020, the Company controlled the entire Warrawoona greenstone belt and held over 200 historic workings on these tenements.

The Salgash field is a long forgotten goldfield. The general impression is initial gold discoveries on and near the surface were incredibly rich, but didn't extend at depth to any great extent. It is 20 kilometres south south-east of Marble Bar.

Charles Kopeke (sometimes spelt Kopecke) is credited for discovering the gold reef in 1897 which ran for miles over the hills. He pegged a claim called Reward. Early reports described the whole region from Marble Bar to Nullagine as The Salgash Belt. It was also a town, although a writer in 1899 states it had two hotels, a bush telegraph office and little else, although one hundred men were working the surrounding goldfield at this time. In 1898, the inhabitants of Salgash insisted the town's name be changed to the indigenous Warrawoona.

The next lease pegged by W.J. Corboy and Pontt, called Klondyke at 6 acres.
They drove an access tunnel into the hill, lined with free coarse gold in quartz. Virtually the entire town of Marble Bar left the next day for the goldfield. Initial gold discoveries along the reef were spectacular, outcropping for about 6 kilometres, 60 to 100 tonnes of gold on the surface. Pilbara Inspector of Mines, E. Davenport Cleland, made a detailed report on the goldfield in 1909, but the goldfield was already in decline.

All the mines at this time were operated by single prospectors or small local syndicates. Bow Bells was the first mine visited which had a ten head battery but no mining was taking place. The Gauntlet Mine at 12 acres
had a small plant but also no mining on a shaft 42 metres down. It was on a large reef with poor gold grades. The mine described as being in a bad condition. It was originally pegged in 1898 by Mackenzie and Corbett

The Gift Mine was south-east of Bow Bells, owned by Richards and Bradley, who had abandoned the mine due to the small vein it was on and the inflow of water. South-east of Gift was the Golden Gauntlet Mine with a shaft 15 metres deep, on a reef 60-80 cms wide, and a shoot 3 metres long.

The Klondyke Boulder Mine was operating on five reefs but was struggling to stay above water (literally) which was flooding the underground workings. A newish main shaft had been sunk through soft schist between the south and main (or blue) reefs. It employed twelve men with a five head battery. In 1909 it was worked by H. Cooper, M.L. Cooke, and Frank Atkinson. It is also stated in 1910 the liquidators had taken over the mine on behalf of the British Exploration Company, which had gone bankrupt several years before. Around 1909 it applied for government assistance to develop the mine, and good gold was found in 1912, but nothing was noted after this.

The Klondyke Queen Mine was owned by Royer and Aitkins, on a very small reef, dipping at a high angle west. They had constructed a tunnel 131 metres into the hill following it. In 1914 it closed. Next was an un-named shaft Davenport Cleland found contained quartz coated with a thin film of gold.

Continuing south-east, the old St George workings, Cuban, Britannia Mines were all abandoned. St George was near the crest of the hill to the north of the bar. Alluvial gullies below this had been worked with some success. Cuban and Britannia were on the south side of the bar on the Kopeke leader. Beyond this was Daly, Frederick and Vereo lease, and adjacent to the south J. O'Connors shaft. At the foot of the range on the south side of the bar was a new lease called Koombana on a well defined reef, 213-243 metres along the surface.

No reference to mining was found after 1914 until some small scale mining occurred in the 1930's by pairs or lone prospectors, then nothing. Other mines in the area are Cairns and Franklin Mines 10 kms north; Apex and Phoenix 5 kms west at the northern end of the Salgash field, Euro and Coppenhagen near the track 5 kms west from the middle section of Salgash and Princept two kms west; Wheel of Fortune and Charlie Mines west at the southern end of the field.

The area has produced officially 0.94 tonnes of gold. It has a JORC resource of 9.10 tonnes of gold. The deposits are associated with the Klondyke Shear Zone, which cuts a synclinal structure between the Mount Edgar and Corunna Downs granitic complexes. Most of the deposits are within 50 metres and parallel to the shear zone, in mafic and ultramafic rocks of the Apex Basalt.

The largest deposits are within sericitic schist to the south of a narrow (under 2 metre) sub vertical mylonitized chert known as the Kopekes Leader. There is an early alteration phase of carbonate-chlorite-talc-quartz, and later ore stage of sericite-pyrite-fuchsite. Gold mineralisation is within 10-30 mm wide boundinaged veins within sericite-pyrite selvages. Other minerals include chalcopyrite with minor sphalerite and galena. The veins shows as chocolate tablet boundinage with horizontal and vertical extension.

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