Porter GeoConsultancy continued its International Study Tour series of professional development courses during November 2011 by visiting a representative selection of the major gold deposits and ore styles across Australia.

  The tour commenced during the mid-afternoon of Sunday 13 November 2011, in Sydney, New South Wales, and ended in Perth, Western Australia on the morning of Sunday 20 November.

  Participants were able to take any 2 or more days, up to the full tour, as suited their interests or availability, with participants joining and leaving the tour at appropiate locations along the route.

This tour also served as a pre-conference field trip to the NewGenGold 2011 Conference held in Perth, Western Australia on the 22 and 23 November, 2011.

PHOTO ALBUM  -  See who went and what they saw

The regions and deposits visited were as follows:

Southeastern Australia

• Cowal - low to intermediate sulphidation epithermal, quartz-carbonate-base metal-gold deposits in the Ordovician Macquarie Arc of central New South Wales,  Mon. 14 November, 2011.

• Cadia Valley Operations (CVO) - porphyry Au-Cu deposits hosted by an Ordovician shoshonitic volcano-intrusive centre of the Macquarie Arc, also in New South Wales,  Tue. 15 November, 2011.

Archaean Yilgarn Craton, Southwest Terrane, SW Western Australia

• Boddington - a Neoarchaean, structurally controlled, intrusion-related gold-copper stockwork, lens and vein deposit in southwestern Western Australia,  Wed. 16 November, 2011.

Archaean Yilgarn Craton, Eastern Goldfields Superterrane, WA

• Kalgoorlie Superpit at Fimiston - a single orogenic gold mineralised system hosted by Neoarchaean greenstones, Australia's largest known gold deposit,  Thu. 17 November, 2011.

• Sunrise Dam - a major orogenic gold deposits in a Neoarchaean greenstone sequence of the Laverton Tectonic Zone, with supergene mineralisation in transported cover, located ~220 km NNE of Kalgoorlie,  Fri. 18 November, 2011.

Neoproterozoic Paterson Orogen, NW Western Australia

• Telfer - vertically stacked stratabound quartz reefs and stockworks of gold-copper mineralisation hosted by domed Neoproterozoic sedimentary rocks,  Sat. 19 November, 2011.

•  Travelling - Telfer to Perth   Sun. 20 November, 2011.

  This study tour doubled as a Pre-conference field trip to the NewGenGold Conference held in Perth, Western Australia on Monday 22 and Wednesday 23 November, 2011. This conference was focussed on the discovery case histories of the most recently found gold deposits, or 'soon-to-be mines', in Australia and in another 12 countries around the world. The program included seventeen 45 minute papers, comprising a keynote address, followed by presentations devoted to another sixteen deposits, delivered over two days. The program was facilitated by geological consultant Keith Yates and Associates, and convened and managed by the Perth based publisher, Paydirt Media Pty Limited.

  The tour was planned, organised and managed by Porter GeoConsultancy Pty Limited.