Cheriton Gold Mine (Cheriton's Find; Cheriton Reward; Golden Mile; Domino; Redwing), Forrestania Goldfield (Mount Holland), Yilgarn Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Cheriton Gold Mine (Cheriton's Find; Cheriton Reward; Golden Mile; Domino; Redwing)	Mine
Forrestania Goldfield (Mount Holland)	Ore Field
Yilgarn Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

Donald J Cheriton with a prospecting party conducted an extensive survey of the country south of Parker Range in 1906, discovering several gold deposits. Cheriton is the reward lease given to him for the finds. It is located 48 kilometres south of Marvel Loch, just south of the British Hill mine turn off, and where the Marvel Loch-Forrestania Road turns from heading south-east to south. It is about 100 metres east of the road.

Local mining experts, including T. Blatchford who would later become Government Assistant Geologist, dismissed the find. This was not helped by Cheriton calling it the Golden Mile. This inevitably drew comparisons to Kalgoorlie's incredibly rich Golden Mile, and was viewed as nothing more than a marketing exercise by Cheriton.

However, Government Geologist S. Goeczel shortly after visited. He could hardly contain his enthusiasm for what he found, describing it as one of the most important gold finds in Western Australia, and a new style of deposit.

Four leases had been applied for (1) Margaret GML 701 (2) Sir John GML 669 (3) Cheriton Reward GML 698 (4) Lady Forrest GML 700.

Goeczel states the gold ore is found in a fracture zone, the gold in a great number of quartz reefs and veins forming a network of variably striking quartz veins. Goeczel identified over 30 veins, and theorises an equal number covered by soil. The quartz is amber coloured, of sugary texture, and encloses iron pyrites and visible gold, with occasional honeycombed cavities. Several costeans and pits have been dug at the site. He notes the fracture zone extends both north north-west and south south-east of undecomposed amphibolite, the result he states of a centripedal strain producing a subsidence along a curved line of resistance. He notes there has been little shedding of gold, resulting in little alluvial nuggets. Goeczel confidently predicts the veins will join at depth into a bulky reef.

On this basis, the Sunnyside Prospecting Syndicate is formed in Melbourne with a 9 month working option over the mine. Meanwhile Cheriton takes out 33tonnes of ore to be crushed.

Little then happens until 1913. Goeczel had not forgotten about the deposit, and now in private business, re-pegs the lease for a syndicate and starts mining the deposit himself between 1913 and 1916. It was called the Domino lease at this time. What he found is uncertain, but no crushing information was found, and only general information that the former government geologist was developing the lease. The place was then forgotten about.

Audax Resources late 1990's explored the site, and mined a shallow laterite gold resource. When the writer visited the site in 2014, the rehabilitation work had been so thorough it was difficult to determine the difference between the mining site and surrounding bushland. Sons of Gwalia then identified the Redwing resource next to Cheriton's. This estimated 1.4 Mt at 2.4 g/t yielding 108 000 ounces of gold. Riedel Resources acquired the lease in 2012.

The prospect is hosted within a west north-west striking sequence of para-amphibolites, ultramafic rocks, and ortho-amphibolites, on the south-west flank of the Parker Dome. Gold is found along a 500 metre strike and down to a depth of 160 metres. The zone dips shallowly west, and the lode is 5 to 30 metres thick. The host rock sequence and controlling structures extend a further 2500 metres south, associated with quartz veining and similar altered rock. Primary gold is related to discrete sheeted quartz veins 1 to 4 metres thick. Free gold can be seen in the veins. Altered haloes around the veins consist of calc-silicate, carbonate, garnet and pyrite assemblages.

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