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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