Kookynie Goldfield, Menzies Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Kookynie Goldfield	Ore Field
Menzies Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

Kookynie is what most visitors imagine a ghost town in the Western Australia goldfields to be like. As a result it can be positively busy with the grey haired caravanning brigade during the winter months.

About fifteen people still live in the town. Beyond this are many building ruins, with a signposted interpretive walking trail. Further exploration will reveal more building remains, old mining machinery, car bodies, and sundry items left behind from over one hundred years ago.

The main centre of attraction is the Grand Hotel where accommodation and meals can be had. Unpowered camping sites are at the Niagara Dam, 20 kilometres to the west. Accommodation and camping can also be had at the Morapoi indigenous community nearby. Non mining attractions include the Kookynie and Niagara cemeteries, Split Rock, and Niagara Dam, which was built by C.Y. O'Connor for the railway.

To reach, travel 42 kilometres north of Menzies along the Goldfields Highway, then 26 kilometres along the bitumen Kookynie Road to the town site. Kookynie is believed to be of indigenous origin meaning water hole or spring.

Gold was discovered in the area by a number of prospectors in 1895. W.A. Miller pegged the Englishman lease, which became the Cosmopolitan, the largest mine in the area employing 500 men. Historic mine sites are found to the east, north and west of the town site. Most have not been developed by modern open pits, and still retain their historic status. Many nuggets have been found in the area over the years.

During its heyday, Kookynie was massive with 3500 people living in the town, and about the same number scattered across the mines in the surrounding district. The town had the first swimming pool in the goldfields, eleven hotels (seven licenced), a brewery, two soft drink manufacturers, a racecourse, sporting facilities, various shops including five general stores, two banks, a school, hospital, post office, police station, wardens office, churches, seven brass bands, a red light district run by Japanese ladies, and four trains a day from Kalgoorlie.

By 1920, the gold had run out, and the town has sat on the edge of oblivion ever since.

Kookynie is located on the Melita-Niagara Domains of the Keith-Kilkenny Tectonic Zone. The Malcolm Greenstone Belt consists of bimodal rhyolite-basalt, intruded by numerous gabbroic to dolerite sills. To the north the Melita rhyolite is associated with andesite-basalt flows, and dolerite, ultramafic and gabbroic sills. To the south the Jeedamya rhyodacite is associated with metabasalt, magnetic dolerite sills, and the mafic Niagara Gabbro Complex.

The first shearing occurred along the granite-greenstone contact, then the area suffered three main phases of deformation. In many places gold is associated with D3 structures, of variable orientations, and cross-cutting favourable lithologies, and pre-existing structures. Gold bearing shoots are concentrated at the intersection of these structures.

In the Niagara area the host east north-east structure is intersected to a lesser extent by north-east lesser workings. The east north-east structures trend sub-parallel with De faults in the Mulliberry Granitoid and D1 faults along the granite-greenstone contact, and in the Niagara Complex. Gold is often associated with bismuth. In a radius around Kookynie gold is associated with pyritic quartz veins. East of Kookynie, D3 mineralised structures trend north to north north-west, sub-parallel and along strike to D2 normal faults. West of Kookynie the structures trend north-east to north north-west, with gold also controlled by early D2 faulting. To the north around Orient Well and the Butterfly mines, D3 faults trend north-west to west north-west, either sub-parallel or cut by low angle earlier structures. In places like the Champion and Britannia mines, gold is associated with galena.

Gold is found as epigenetic vein,and lode style in three types:
1. moderate to high grade associated with brittle structures cross-cutting magnetic dolerite intrusives.
2. high grade quartz vein deposits associated with north-south trending fault related structures within granite.
3. large tonnage, low grade deposits associated with quartz vein stockworks.

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