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Koolanooka |
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Western Australia, WA, Australia |
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Fe
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Super Porphyry Cu and Au
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IOCG Deposits - 70 papers
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All papers now Open Access.
Available as Full Text for direct download or on request. |
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The Koolanooka iron deposit is located some 160 km ESE of the Pacific Ocean port of Geraldton and 20 km east of Morawa in the Murchison Terrane of the Archaean Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia.
The deposit lies within the 13 km long, NE trending Koolanooka Hills, which have peaks that are up to 180 m above the surrounding plains. The hills are composed of Archaean banded iron formation (BIF), mica schists and quartzites with lesser actinolite schists and hornfelses. Archaean (2600 Ma) porhyritic granite intrudes the sequence to the north of the hills, while younger (2562 ±17 Ma) quartz porphyry is found over an area of 8 sq. km. to the east cutting the BIF sequence. Extensive granite gneisses in the region have been dated at 3100 to 2800 Ma.
All of the ore is confined to the generally west dipping oxidised BIF, although some ore occurs as scree. The BIF sequence is bounded to the west by a concordant structural hangingwall, (but possibly stratigraphic footwall) of metamorphosed siliceous sediments and to the east by the intrusive quartz porphyry detailed above.
The BIF contains a stratigraphy of lithologies within the ore zone, some bands of which are continuous over the length of the Koolanooka Hills, while others are are lensoid and discontinuous. These lithologies include hematite-goethite-magnetite, hematite chert, hematite-clay, hematite-magnetite-limonite, limonite-hematite and hematite-limonite-chert. To the east these facies pass into a thick undifferentiated iron formation which does not constitute ore, and where oxidised is composed of friable to fissile to massive hematite and chert.
Four ore types were mined, namely:
i). Massive magnetite-hematite-goethite ore - well banded with 10 to 20% metallic lustre primary magnetite with hematite formed from martitisation of magnetite, and goethite replacing chert, iron silicates or iron carbonites.
ii). Goethite-hematite ore - often spongey and less banded than the magnetite-hematite-goethite ore. Hematite is formed from martitisation of magnetite while goethite replaceshematite and other primary minerals of the BIF.
iii). Goethite-hematite-limonite ore - a fissile to friable ore which is characteristically a deep yellow in colour. The limonite was formed from very fine grained iron silicate bands and goethite from partial hydration of martite or by replacement of chert.
iv). Goethite cemented scree ore - formed to depths of up to 20 m to the NW of the pit. Goethite replaces silica bands in the fragments, while large quantities of remobilised goethite has cemented the scree, while subsequent solution channels are filled by vitreous goethite.
Shipments of ore mined had a composition of: 59 to 61% Fe, 3.7 to 4.25% SiO2, 1.4 to 1.6% Al2O3, 0.42 to 0.48% S, 0.118 to 0.122% P, 0.14% to 0.40% MgO, 0.01 to 0.16% Cao, 0.13 to 0.75% Mn and 0.05 to 0.10% TiO2.
The deposit was exploited between 1966 and 1972, during which time 6.7 Mt of ore were mined at a grade of 60.2% Fe, 0.129% P.
At the end of 2007, the deposit had a JORC compliant reserve (Midwest Corp., 2008) of 7.9 Mt of direct shipping hematite ore @ 57.8% Fe.
In addition there is a total identified JORC compliant inferred mineral resource (Midwest Corp., 2006; Sinosteel, 2013) of 430 Mt of magnetite mineralisation @ 35% Fe amenable to upgrading
The most recent source geological information used to prepare this decription was dated: 2006.
This description is a summary from published sources, the chief of which are listed below.
© Copyright Porter GeoConsultancy Pty Ltd. Unauthorised copying, reproduction, storage or dissemination prohibited.
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McKay J H, 1975 - Koolanooka iron mine, WA: in Knight C L, (Ed.), 1975 Economic Geology of Australia & Papua New Guinea The AusIMM, Melbourne Mono 5 pp 936-940
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