Aldiss-Karonie, Mount Monger Goldfield, Kalgoorlie-Boulder Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Aldiss-Karonie	- not defined -
Mount Monger Goldfield	Ore Field
Kalgoorlie-Boulder Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

Aldiss-Karonie is a line of north-south trending gold prospects,120 kilometres east of Kalgoorlie, and 60 kilometres east of the Randalls gold processing plant. At the time of writing Silver Lake Resources controlled all leases on the Mount Monger Goldfield, including Aldiss-Karonie.

Aldiss-Karonie is a 40 kilometre north-south line of gold prospects directly south of the Trans Australian Railway Line, in semi arid desert of spinifex and outlying patches of salmon gums. From north to south the prospects are K75, Karonie Main Zone, Harrys Hill, Spice, Aspen, K4, French Kiss North, French Kiss, Little Peck, Esplanade, and King.

The prospects are hosted by the Admiral, Batavia, and Challenger Trends, hosting a large number of discrete anomalous zones. The geology of the area consists of high magnesium mafics, andesites, intermediate and felsic volcanoclasts, Archaean shales and banded chert, granodiorite, syenites, porphyries and sediments.

Gold mineralisation is hosted by the intermediate volcanoclasts and porphyry basalts. Another source states the vast majority of gold mineralisation is hosted by amphibolite rocks, that has metamorphic foliations, sub-parallel to the sedimentary layering. The amphibolites and metasediments strike north-south, and dip steeply west.

The overlying shallow cover is a very complex regolith of stripped Archaean profiles, overlain with reworked Archaean sediments, Tertiary sediments, windblown sand, paleo drainage channels and usually dry salt lakes.

Specifically, the deposits strike north-south, dipping west, in ortho and para amphibolites, with interlayered felsic sills or tuffs. Gold is found in the Main and West lenses. Gold mineralisation dips steeply west with variable plunges around the Karonie mine, and 30 degrees south at French Kiss.

The deposits are related to the Aldiss Fault and related splays. Gold is hosted within shear zones as lenses 1 to 30 metres wide. Gold occurs with, but is not directly related to sulphide mineralisation in shear lenses. Gold is associated with 1-10% volume pyrrhotite, and accessory pyrite. 85-90% of the gold occurs as low silver nature gold clusters (electrum?), and 5 to 15% gold as telluride assemblages. Both are hosted in a silicate gangue of amphibolite mineralisation.

Main Zone, Harry's Hill, Tank/Atriedes, and Spice are found in metamorphosed amphibolite, while Italia/Argonault, and French Kiss in metamorphosed greenschist. The only established mine along the line of prospects is the Karonie Gold Mine (Karonie Main Zone). This is the type locality of honeaite, and contains tellurides and other interesting minerals. A full scale mineralogical study of this mine would be useful and prove interesting.

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References