Publication Name: Australasian Exploration Geoscience Conference 2019
Authors: David Fox, Sam Spinks, Mark Pearce, Margaux Le Vaillant, Robert Thorne, Milo Barham, Mehrooz Aspandiar
Date Published: September 2019
Number of Pages: 4
Abstract:
Carlow Castle is a Cu-Co-Au deposit situated within the western Pilbara Craton of Western Australia. Whilst Carlow Castle is the oldest discovered copper deposit in the Pilbara region, having been initially discovered in 1882, no detailed study of the ore mineralisation has ever been undertaken. After being long abandoned, a recent drilling campaign through 2018 uncovered an economically significant and geologically complex system of Cu-Co-Au mineralisation with a current resource estimate for Carlow Castle of 7.7Mt @ 1.06g/t Au, 0.51% Cu, and 0.08% Co, making it one of Australia’s most significant Cu-Co-Au deposits. This mineralisation was analysed using a variety of geochemical and mineralogical techniques in order to provide the first constraint on its genesis. This analysis suggests that Carlow Castle is a hydrothermal Cu-Co-Au deposit, with mineralisation hosted in sulphide-rich quartz veins throughout a pervasively chloritised shear zone in an Archaean mafic volcano-sedimentary sequence.