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CRC LEME
Open File Report 9
ABSTRACT

The pre-mining geomorphology and surface geology of the Beasley Creek Gold Mine, Laverton, WA

Robertson, I.D.M. and Churchward, H.M.

The site of the Beasley Creek Gold mine lies on a small hill 3.5 m high, surrounded by wash plains which form a low tabular divide between broad drainage floors to the north and south. The hill is asymmetric, with a very gentle western slope, marked by calcrete and sparse, small, saprolite outcrops, a crest with sporadic ironstone outcrops and a steeper eastern slope protected by lateritic duricrust.

The whole area is mantled by red, friable clay soil and strewn with multi-component lag. The soils on the low-lying areas are deeper than on the hill, are relatively acid and are underlain by Wiluna hardpan but become alkaline and thin on the hill where they are underlain by saprolite and calcrete. Ironstone lag and a duricrust-related khaki lag show only slight dispersion from their sources. Coarse, black ferruginous lag has a wider distribution but seems associated with the subcrop of the black shale ore zone. Finer brown ferruginous lags have a wider distribution and their finest fractions seem to have been separated by down slope colluvial sedimentation. Quartz lag is dispersed around small quartz veins unrelated to ore.

Keywords:

Wanderrie country, geomorphology, surficial materials, lag, hardpan, calcrete, ironstone, lateritic duricrust, saproilite, permian glacials, regolith-landform, erosional regime, relict regime, depositional regime.


Last updated: Tuesday, January 04, 2000 10:23 AM

 

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