Sickle Gold Mine, Laverton, Laverton Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Sickle Gold Mine	Mine
Laverton	- not defined -
Laverton Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

The Sickle deposit had a pre mining JORC Indicated resource of 6.5 Mt at 1.7 g/t yielding 361 300 ounces of gold, and a JORC Inferred resource of 2.4 Mt @ 1.3 g/t yielding 104 400 ounces. An open pit was developed at the site around 2011.

There are two parallel north north-west trending shear zones called Sickle and Sickle East, each up to 50 metres wide, bounded to the Sickle Synform which plunges 45 degrees south-east. The shear zones consist of ribbon banded quartz and pyrite, carrying steep east dipping tabular gold ore bodies.

The core of the synform is felsic tuff, containing thick coarse felsic epiclastic rock, with the synform overturned to the west.

The Sickle Shear Zone is a complex high strain affair some 50 metres wide, and within this clay, pyrite and quartz veining. The Sickle East Shear Zone has developed abundant quartz and pyrite with gold values 30 to 50 metres wide. To the west is fine grained felsic rocks, and east graphitic siltstone. Between the two shear zone is chert-pyrite rock carrying significant gold in two gold bearing beds, the ore zone and a lower mineralised horizon, forming steep tabular bodies.

The pyrite is massive to semi massive over a 600 metre length in the upper zone. Pyrite is also dominant in the lower sulphide zone, with sericite-ankerite alteration, and up to 5% arsenopyrite. There is more chert and quartz here than the upper zone. The Footwall zone is 1 to 2 metres wide with up to 10% arsenopyrite, and intensely deformed graphitic shale. There is a thin rhyolitic porphyry between the Footwall and shale, brecciated and also arsenopyrite rich.

The zone between the two sulphide bodies is sericite-ankerite altered rocks, with some sulphide rich stockwork veins up to 2cms wide and pyrite rich in the upper parts and pyrrhotite rich in the lower parts. Proximal to the veins is hematite rich in the upper parts and pyrrhotite rich in the lower parts.

Above the ore zones, is 8 to 10 metres of gravelly colluvium, above goethite and hematite stained saprolite clays

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References