Yesterday I was fortunate to be able to visit, and go underground in, a couple of gold mines in the Central Goldfields region of Victoria. One is predominantly slate and the other sandstone. Both have quartz veins rich in gold and sulphide minerals. I have identified pyrite, galena and sphalerite...
A Sway created sometime back from a presentation that I gave. See also…
A nice little spiky calcite specimen from the Portland Harbour Trust Quarry, Cape Sir William Grant, Portland, Glenelg Shire, Victoria. There are two generations of calcite as can be seen on some of the terminations where the outer calcite “coat” is missing. The specimen measures 20mm across and is a...
Flinders is a well-known collecting locality in southern Victoria, Australia, most notable for its zeolite minerals, particularly gmelinite.This publication explores the minerals that have been found here. You can access here.
Main Lead is an area north of Beaufort, Victoria. It was the subject of an early gold rush (Fiery Creek) in the mid 1850s. I was fortunate to be able to visit the area today, with the Ballarat Field Naturalists. Old workings from the original gold rush, through to the...
A granite quarry in Victoria’s northwest. Featured image: Schorl tourmaline, Pyramid Hill From Mindat – Two quarries, one abandoned, the other operated by E.B. Mawson and Sons, have been excavated on the low granite knolls south of the main Pyramid Hill peak in the Terricks Range, in northern Victoria. The...
Mooralla has long been a famous collecting area, mainly in lapidary circles, and is renowned for its spectacular specimens of smoky quartz. Lesser known is the occurrence of other forms of quartz, including epimorphs, and a small number of other minerals. Featured image: Smoky Quartz, Mooralla, Victoria The popular smoky quartz...
Lake Cooper Quarry is situated on the western side of the Corop-Heathcote Road, near to the township of Corop in central Victoria. It is a working quarry producing “road metal” from a metabasite (a subaqueous lava flow), part of the Cambrian Heathcote Greenstone Belt. Featured image: Lake Cooper Quarry from...
Flinders is a Dana locality southeast of Melbourne, Victoria, best known for producing large crystals of gmelinite. The basalts are part of the Older Volcanics with a flow near the top of the sequence dated at 42 million years. Zeolites and associated mineralisation occur in vesicles in basalt along the...
The Duke of Cornwall Mine is just outside Fryerstown on the road to Chewton. There are dumps on one side of the road and the ruins of a Cornish Engine House on the other, registered by the National Trust. Featured image: Cornish Engine House Built in 1865, the only alteration...
Vivianite nodules up to 20cm across have been found on the beach west of Anglesea on Victoria’s south coast. These are usually water-rounded dark blue nodules that sometimes have crystal-lined cavities. Featured image: Anglesea Beach, looking towards Demon’s Bluff in the distance It is thought that the nodules formed in...
Coimadai (pronounced come-ida) Antimony mine is on Pyrete Creek, a tributary of Goodman’s Creek, about 15 km NNE of Bacchus Marsh. It consists of two lodes, Draper’s and Bondison’s. The deposits were discovered in 1887 and worked intermittently until 1915, then operated again between 1942 and 1944. Featured image: John Carey...
