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Harbour Lights
Western Australia, WA, Australia
Main commodities: Au


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The Harbour Lights gold deposit is located 1.5 km north-west of Leonora within southern half of the Kalgoorlie Terrane and Eastern Goldfields Superterrane in the Archaean Yilgarn Craton of Western Australia.

The deposit was mined by open pit from 1985 to 1994 when the ore body had been depleted.

The greenstone belt sequence in the district comprises a western mafic-ultramafic succession and a dominantly felsic volcanic suite.   Within the former, from west to east the succession is amphibolite from the granite-greenstone contact, overlain by sheared komatiites and then by a thick succession of high Mg tholeiitic basalts, with thin, locally persistant sediment bands (the Gwalia Slate).   To the west the mafics have been intruded by batholithic diapiric granitoids (monzogranite and granodiorite).   Deformation is intimately associated with the intrusive contact with dextral strike-slip faulting along the Mount George shear zone which forms the western boundary of the broader Keith-Kilkenny Tectonic Zone.

All of the significant gold is below the Gwalia Slate and within shear zones with steep stretching lineations.   Host rocks are variable although the high Mg tholeiites are the most productive.   Three zones of mineralisation are recognised in a highly deformed and altered sequence of mafic and ultramafic rocks over an apparent thickness of 200 m.   The bulk of the ore is in the Hangingwall and Central zones with lesser in the Footwall zone.   Mineralisation is complexly distributed in lenticular domains.

Alteration depends on the original lithology, with fuchsite schists developed from the less magnesian rocks, talc-chlorite schist from komatiites and biotite schists to chlorite-albite-quartz-calcite-ankerite schists from high Mg tholeiites.   The latter are accompanied by increasing amounts of ferroan magnesite and ankerite with higher degrees of alteration.

Native gold occurs mainly as minute inclusions in and around late stage arsenopyrite grains which replace pyrite.

Total production to 1989 was - 2.257 Mt @ 6.75 g/t Au for 15.26 t Au.

For detail consult the reference(s) listed below.

The most recent source geological information used to prepare this decription was dated: 1990.    
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.


    Selected References
Dudley R J, Skwarnecki M S, Makar M  1990 - Harbour Lights Gold deposit, Leonora: in Hughes F E (Ed.), 1990 Geology of the Mineral Deposits of Australia & Papua New Guinea The AusIMM, Melbourne   Mono 14, v1 pp 343-348


Porter GeoConsultancy Pty Ltd (PorterGeo) provides access to this database at no charge.   It is largely based on scientific papers and reports in the public domain, and was current when the sources consulted were published.   While PorterGeo endeavour to ensure the information was accurate at the time of compilation and subsequent updating, PorterGeo, its employees and servants:   i). do not warrant, or make any representation regarding the use, or results of the use of the information contained herein as to its correctness, accuracy, currency, or otherwise; and   ii). expressly disclaim all liability or responsibility to any person using the information or conclusions contained herein.

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