Safari Bore Gold Mine (Serengeti), Mount Celia Station, Menzies Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Safari Bore Gold Mine (Serengeti)	Mine
Mount Celia Station	Mountain
Menzies Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

The Safari Bore Gold Mine is 100 kilometres south of Laverton. The abandoned Mount Celia Station homestead is 11 kilometres to the north. The Edjudina Goldfield is to the south, and Linden Goldfield to the north. Safari Bore borders the northern boundary of the Menzies Shire.

The deposit was discovered by Pancontinental in 1988.

The open pit mine was developed by Sons of Gwalia from May 2003 to 2005, producing 287 250 tonnes of ore. The ore was transported to the Carousue Dam processing plant constructed in 2002. St Barbara purchased the project in 2005, busily occupying itself in rehabilitating the waste rock dumps at Safari Bore.

Saracen Gold Mines Pty Ltd purchased the project in 2006, and commenced mining again in 2009. It owns tenements and several mines in a north-south stretch of desert from the Red October mine on Lake Carey to mines just south of the processing plant 90 kilometres to the south. Like an old girlfriend who cannot let go, the company tends to revisit its old mines to dabble again at mining, so any of its mines could be active at any time. An underground mine is slated for development at Safari Bore in 2016. Historic production to 2015 was 1.7 Mt at 2.7 g/t yielding 152 Koz.

The deposit is (was) covered by up to 1 metre of Aeolian sand, and 4-10 metres of colluvial sediments. Narrow lenses of alluvial sand and gravel have been found in this near surface. From 0.5 to 5 metres from the surface has been subjected to intense calcification. Most of the regolith is saprolite.

Gold is hosted by andesitic to dacitic metavolcanic rocks, altered to quartz-chlorite-sericite-carbonate schist. It is bounded to the east and west by serpentinized komatiite and talcrose schist. Gold is associated with quartz veins in shears.

The present open pit is 1000 metres long by 310 metres wide, and up to 80 metres deep, as of 2015. There was an adjoining pit called Serengeti, mined between May 2003 to August 2004, however it was filled in by waste from the Safari Bore pit.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References