Bentley Mine, Ten Mile Outcamp, Leonora Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Bentley Mine	Mine
Ten Mile Outcamp	- not defined -
Leonora Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

The Bentley mine is a copper-zinc-silver underground mine located 60km north of Leonora and 250km north of Kalgoorlie. It is worked in conjunction with the nearby Jaguar mine (4 km North of the Bentley mine) and share a mill.

Bentley was discovered in 2008 and brought into production in the June 2011 quarter when Jaguar decline development intersected the top of the ore body.

It is an Archaean volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposit, located in the northern portion of the Norseman - Wiluna greenstone belt in the Yilgarn Craton of Western Australia. The geology is dominated by Archaean mafic to felsic volcanic rocks with some sedimentary and intrusive rocks, which have all undergone tight folding and tilting to become sub-vertical. The Archean units are overlain by a Tertiary alluvial cover and weathering of the Archaean bedrock is intense resulting in oxidation levels that are commonly up to 120m deep.

The ore texture is typically finely banded to massive sulphide. The mineralogy includes pyrite, pyrrhotite, sphalerite and chalcopyrite. These are commonly intergrown with minor amounts of galena, stannite and arsenopyrite. The pyrrhotite appears to be dominant over pyrite, unlike the Teutonic Bore deposit. The ore also contains significant gold credits.

The massive sulphides are hosted by the “Jaguar package” which sits within the upper tholeitic volcanic sequence of the greenstone belt. The Jaguar package is a mixed unit containing sedimentary and volcanic rocks. The sediments within the Jaguar package include graphitic shale, siltstone, greywacke plus some minor amounts of pebble conglomerate and chert. These sediment units are bounded by massive and pillowed basaltic flows and are cut by related volcanic feeder dykes.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References