The Fosterville (central Victoria, Australia) and globe-progress (Reefton, South Island, New Zealand) deposits : Examples of shear zone-related disseminated-style systems in low-grade metamorphic terrains
- Authors: Bierlein, Frank , Christie, Anthony B , McKnight, Stafford
- Date: 2002
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: 114th Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America , Colorado
- Full Text: false
- Description: Orogenic gold deposits in central Victoria and Reefton formed during the evolution of a Paleozoic accretionary system along the Pacific margin of Gondwana. The majority of deposits in both camps are characterised by coarse-grained gold that is hosted in laminated to massive quartz veins. These ‘lode’ structures are developed in isoclinally folded turbidites that have been metamorphosed to lower greenschist facies. At Fosterville, diffuse zones of mineralization occur along a high-angle reverse fault zone consisting of en-échelon, strike-parallel segments with oblique slip and strike slip movement. The Globe-Progress deposit is associated with an arcuate shear that flattens with depth forming a listric ramp flat. In contrast to ‘classic’ lode-style deposits, mineralization at Fosterville and Globe-Progress is predominantly hosted by massive sandstone beds, in quartz/carbonate vein stockworks, and in clay-rich fault breccias of quartz vein and sulfidic wall rock fragments. The porous sandstones, which are intercalated with carbonaceous slates, have a bleached appearance, are invariably sericitized and carbonatized, and are 'impregnated' with a disseminated arsenopyrite-pyrite(±stibnite) assemblage. Gold occurs as sub-micron inclusions within the sulfides and rarely as free grains with a diameter of 1-10 microns. Highest-grade disseminated mineralization occurs within acicular arsenopyrite crystals. Fluid inclusions from Fosterville range in composition from high salinity and relatively high CO2, to low salinity and H2O-predominance, suggesting precipitation of at least a portion of the veins under epizonal conditions.....
- Description: 2003004220
The biological oxidation of carbonaceous material in the treatment of a refractory gold bearing ore
- Authors: McKnight, Stafford , Hall, Stephen , Rowe, James
- Date: 2004
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Paper presented at Refractory Gold Ore Bioxidation 2004, Bendigo, Victoria : 8th November, 2004
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: E1
- Description: 2003000721
Leven Star deposit: An example of Middle to Late Devonian intrusion-related gold systems in the western Lachlan Orogen, Victoria
- Authors: Whittam, R. R. , Bierlein, Frank , McKnight, Stafford
- Date: 2006
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Journal of Earth Sciences Vol. 53, no. 2 (2006), p. 343-362
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: This study documents an example of atypical gold mineralisation in the central Victorian gold province of the western Lachlan Orogen, Australia. Unlike the vast majority of orogenic gold deposits in this region, the Leven Star deposit at Malmsbury is characterised by a disseminated-stockwork style of mineralisation, a close spatial and temporal association with post-tectonic felsic intrusions, complex alteration characteristics and a Au-As-Sb (±Bi-Te-Cu-Zn-Pb-Sn-W) ore assemblage. In contrast to orogenic-style, metamorphism-related gold mineralisation (ca 440 Ma), which pre-dated magmatism in the western Lachlan Orogen by tens of millions of years, ore formation in the Leven Star deposit was synchronous with, and is paragenetically younger than, Middle to Late Devonian (ca 370 Ma) magmatism. On the basis of these timing relationships, as well as whole-rock geochemistry, and structural, petrographic and fluid-inclusion data, it is suggested that the Leven Star deposit is not orogenic in character and instead should be classified as intrusion-related. © Geological Society of Australia.
- Description: C1
- Description: 2003001628
Hydrothermal insights into the deposition of invisible and visible gold within aresenopyrite
- Authors: Morey, A. , Tomkins, A. , Weinberg, R. , Bierlein, Frank , McKnight, Stafford , Davidson, G.
- Date: 2007
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Proceedings of the Ninth Biennial SGA Meeting, Dublin 2007, 20th August, 2007 p. 781-784
- Full Text: false
- Description: By studying backscatter electron (BSE) micrographs, and the major- and trace-element geochemistry of gold bearing arsenopyrite from the late-Archaian Bardoc Tectonic Zone, Western Australia, this study helps constrain the hydrothermal conditions of gold deposition associated with this common ore mineral.
- Description: E1
- Description: 2003005489
Characterization and recovery of gold associated with fine, activated carbon
- Authors: Rowe, James , McKnight, Stafford
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Paper presented at World Gold Conference 2009, Johannesburg, South Africa : 26th-30th October 2009
- Full Text:
- Description: The attrition of activated carbon, and the loss of gold associated with it, is of significant economic importance to the operation of a CIP/CIL circuit. The focus of this study was on activated carbon recovered from an elution circuit which was deemed too fine for reuse. Results of cyclosizer and laser particle size analysis identified that most of the carbon was contained in the larger size fraction suggesting formation by abrasion. Digestion and AAS analysis of the individual size fractions identified a disproportionate concentration of gold in the finer size fractions which was identified by scanning electron microscopy to be due to the presence of fine metallic gold formed as a result of the acid washing process. Attempts to strip the remaining gold using sodium hydroxide or sodium sulphide based solutions proved unsuccessful due to poor elution efficiencies and re adsorption of gold. Upgrading of the material by froth flotation was also investigated using various conventional flotation reagents which had some success in concentrating the free metallic gold, however, grade and/or recoveries were considered less than desirable. Greater success was ultimately found in the transfer of gold from the fine carbon material onto coarser virgin activated carbon using a caustic cyanide solution. Sodium sulphide, sodium chloride and ammonium chloride based solutions were also trialled but proved less successful owing to their inability to mobilise metallic gold or gold cyanide species. Repetition of the transfer process proved capable of stripping 97% of the gold contained on the carbon fines for a bed volume ratio of 6:1.
- Description: 2003007482