Paddington Gold Mine (Paddington 1; Paddington 2), Paddington (Gudarra), Broad Arrow Goldfield, Kalgoorlie-Boulder Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Paddington Gold Mine (Paddington 1; Paddington 2)	Mine
Paddington (Gudarra)	- not defined -
Broad Arrow Goldfield	Ore Field
Kalgoorlie-Boulder Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

The Paddington Gold Mine is 34 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie bordering the west side of the Goldfields Highway. It is about 5 kilometres south of Broad Arrow. The mill is next to the highway, and is a good place to stop to observe an operating modern gold mill.

Behind this is a large abandoned pit, the northern section called Paddington 1, and the southern section Paddington 2. Plans are in place to use the pits to store tailings from other nearby operations, so they are likely to one day be filled in. The area south of the mine is highly disturbed from various other small pits dug, roads, bulldozed areas, and tailing heaps. Various pits and some underground operations have been developed in the Broad Arrow and Black Flag regions over the years to feed the mill.

Gold was first located at the site around 1896, and the present pit has destroyed several closely spaced mines from the period, and will be listed on Mindat separately. Some mines from the period still exist east and north of the present location as wholly or partially collapsed shafts. The mine also covers part of the former town of Gudarra, which developed to service the mines in the 1890's.

Between 1897 to 1901, the area produced 1700 kg of gold from 123 580 tonnes of ore at 14 g/t. These early mines closed when the easily won high grade gold at shallow depths ran out. In 1934, Lochinvar Gold Mines Limited took over the leases, did extensive underground development, but little in the way of mining.

The United Goldfields Company explored the site in the 1970s, and dug an exploration pit. It entered a short lived joint venture with Carpentaria Exploration Company, then later with Pancontinental Mining Limited. Tenements were amalgamated eventually covering a length of 12 kilometres. By mid 1982, Paddington 1 had a resource delineated of 5.6 Mt at 3.3 g/t, then Paddington 2 was discovered at 2.5 Mt. Gold production commenced at the site in June 1985,and the original pit was active until 2002.

The mine was opened by Goldfields Limited, taken over by Placer Dome Limited in January 2003. This company was taken over by Barrick Gold in March 2006. Shortly after Norton Goldfields Limited purchased the mine for $45 million A. Recently this company merged with the Zijin Mining Group.

The deposit occurs in the regional significant Bardoc Shear Zone. Paddington 1 and 2 are separated by a north north-east shear zone. Paddington 1 is the larger of the 2 extending to at least 250 metres depth, while there is no significant mineralisation below 90 metres at Paddington 2.

The lode is hosted by the Paddington Dolerite and high Mg tholeiitic basalt (Paddington Volcanics). The lode strikes north-south and dips sub vertically. The deposit consists of quartz-carbonate veins and vein sets containing gold, pyrite, galena, chalcopyrite, and pyrrhotite. Scheelite occurs as crystal clusters in association with Fe bearing carbonates and various sulphides.

The Mt Colac ultramafics form the Footwall to the lodes to the east of variably altered komatiitic lavas. A thin intensely sheared black shale/chert unit overlies the ultramafics. To the west the Hanging Wall is the Black Flag Formation, consisting of basal graphitic shales grading upwards into acidic tuffs and metapelites. Bordering the Hanging Wall is a zone tholeiitic basalt with interflow breccia, in contact with the flanking dolerite of the ore zone.

Gold mineralisation is linked to two major deformation events. Primary deformation was the wrenching of north north-west to south south-east sinistral direction, resulting to localised silification, and gold deposition along normal faults, and associated ductile shear zones. The second was north north-east dextral shearing with an associated reverse movement, producing a second set of structures, forming shallow dipping veins, vein sets and stockworks within splay faults.

Sulphides are up to 10% volume of the ore, consisting of arsenopyite, pyrite and marcasite. Specks of gold up to 1 mm occur as dendritic films and grains in quartz veins, and blebs within arsenopyrite and carbonate pseudomorphs. Supergene gold is found within the oxide zone associated with goethite-limonite. Trace chalcopyrite, sphalerite, galena, native silver, is also found with arsenical and iron sulphides. Pyrrhotite is the dominant sulphide below 180 metres.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References