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Waterloo |
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Western Australia, WA, Australia |
| Main commodities:
Ni
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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 Waterloo nickel deposit is located 40 km SSE or Leinster in the Northeastern Goldfields region of the Archaean Yilgarn craton in Western Australia.
The deposit is hosted within a folded remnant of ultramafic stratigraphy on the eastern limb of a tightly folded synclinal structure, which is located within an enclave of greenstones on the southeastern margin of the Perseverance Granitoid on the western side of the Yandal greenstone belt, towards its southern extremity.
The nickel sulphide mineralisation is associated with the basal contact of a 20 to 100 m thick serpentinised olivine mesocumulate lying below a thick sequence of dacite that is interbedded with thin differentiated komatiite flows, and above a thick sequence dominated by pillow basalts, mafic tuffs and metasedimentary rocks. This sequence dips steeply to the West and is variably disrupted by low angle shearing and associated folding. The host ultramafic appears to have been truncated at depth by a large flat-dipping shear zone. The footwall dacites are intruded by a poikiloblastic pyroxenite which has intrusive relationships with the surrounding units. The footwall thin flow has locally preserved olivine spinifex texture indicating upright facing direction (Beresford et al., 2004; Thébaud et al., 2012).
The mineralisation is blind, and occurs at depths of between 100 and 400 m below the surface.
The nickel mineralisation occurs as a south-plunging elongated ribbon of disseminated and massive sulphides situated at the lower contact of the serpentinised olivine mesocumulate unit. Although the deposit's lenticular geometry suggest localised structural remobilisation, overall, it appears to be an intact magmatic sulphide deposit situated at the base of a komatiitic flow. The sulphide assemblage comprises pyrrhotite-pentlandite. All sulphides styles are high tenor which translates into grades ranging from 10 to 17% Ni (massive ore) and 1 to 3% Ni (disseminated ore). The deposit also contains high levels of copper (>0.5%) and PGE (1 to 2 g/t) (Thébaud et al., 2012).
Ore reserve and mineral resources at 31 December, 2009 (Noril'sk Nickel webpage, 2013) were:
Proven and probable ore reserves - 0.011 Mt @ 2.37% Ni,
Probable mineral resources - 0.386 Mt @ 2.09% Ni,
Indicated resources - 0.286 Mt @ 1.76% Ni.
The most recent source geological information used to prepare this decription was dated: 2012.
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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