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Collingwood |
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Queensland, Qld, Australia |
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Sn
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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 Collingwood tin deposit is located around 35 km south of the town of Cooktown within the Hodgkinson-Barron Sub-province of the Hodgkinson Province (Basin) of far north Queensland, Australia.
(#Location: 15° 45' 57"S, 145° 14' 12"E).
Tin mining in the Collingwood area have been reported from as early as the beginning of the twentieth century. While various companies have explored the area, significant resources were not outlined until a systematic drilling program was carried out by Shell Minerals in 1978, resulting in the estimation of a geological resource of 4 Mt at 0.7% Sn. In 1991 the company announced an indicated resource of 2.2 Mt at 1% Sn. Between 1995 and 2000 various companies had ownership or options on the Collingwood mining leases, culminating in Bluestone Nominees, a wholly owned subsidiary of Melals X Ltd, taking control of the project. Bluestone commenced mining in late 2005, with the first commercial shipment of concentrates in early 2006. Operations, which involved mechanised underground mining via a portal and decline with a ventilation shaft, continued until mine closure in May, 2008. Bluestone's liquidators disclaimed the mining leases in June 2015. In June, 2006, Bluestone had announced a remaining Ore Reserve of 0.9539 Mt @ 1.19% Sn, within a Mineral Resource of 1.2809 Mt @t 1.27% Sn. Between then and closure of the operation 2.5 years later, the mine produced ~5700 t of 60% Sn concentrate per annum.
The sequence in the Hodgkinson-Barron Sub-province comprises Middle Devonian deep water flysch unconformably overlain by Carboniferous to Permian terrestrial sediments and volcanics. The latter represent a Permo-Carboniferous volcanic arc that was devloped in the region, with associated granitic intrusion, with which the tin mineralisation is associated.
Intrusives largely belong to the major Permo-Carboniferous Finlayson Granitoid batholith and comprise a variety of phases, including medium grained equigranular granite, fine grained porphyritic granite, porphyritic microgranite, dravite aplite and a younger crosscutting quartz-feldspar porphyry.
The ore deposit is composed of three styles of mineralisation, namely:
1). Steep, siliceous, sheeted veins, containing the bulk of the mineralisation. These are a series of steep, subparallel fractures, fringed by siliceous alteration and range from a few mm to 10 m thickness, with lengths of a few to 200 m, striking at 320 to 350° and define a 950 m long zone, with mineralisation over a 50 to 130 m vertical interval. The reserve is confined to the central 500 m. Associated alteration includes quartz-muscovite, to quartz-tourmaline to quartz-albite.
2). Albitic veins which contain the highest grade ore and bonanza zones and are not concordant with the siliceous veins. They are generally on a few mms to cms thick, occasionally reaching 2 m, but are irregular and poddy, and comprise intergrowths of cassiterite and albite with variable tourmaline, chlorite, fluorite and occasional biotite, muscovite, apatite and sulphides.
3). Flat lying greisen in a few cupolas and irregularities in the granite roof, with erratic sulphides and cassiterite, and ubiquitous fluorite.
The in situ (un-developed) resource in 1990 was estimated to be 4 Mt @ 0.7% Sn.
Historic production from the district prior to mining at Collingwood, mostly alluvial, amounted to 13 000 tonnes of cassiterite concentrate, half of which was from discovery in 1885 to 1905.
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.
Collingwood
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Jones T R, Moeller T, Truelove A J 1990 - Collingwood Tin deposit: in Hughes F E (Ed.), 1990 Geology of the Mineral Deposits of Australia & Papua New Guinea The AusIMM, Melbourne Mono 14, v2 pp 1549-1555
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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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