Missing something
18 April 2012
YOUR columnist [View from the West End, March 14] wrote: “Missing things is not new … [WMC] sampled over the top of a low hill that would later be known as Telfer”. These words are not correct and are harsh judgement of a young WMC geologist in very difficult terrane.
The actual events were as follows.
In 1970, prospector Jean-Paul Turcaud took a young WMC geologist to his copper discovery, in an outcrop of quartzite in the Great Sandy Desert. He did not take him to the outcrop of the Middle Vale Reef, which was the Telfer gold lode. This was shown to Dave Tyrwhitt in May 1972 by R Thomson who had sampled the reef while working for Day Dawn Minerals NL and “recorded gold values”. Remember also that in 1972, WMC (managers of Central Norseman and Gold Mines of Kalgoorlie) advised the stock exchange that operations at both companies would cease production. Although the price of gold had started to rise, inflation more than offset the rising gold price, which, as it turned out, made Telfer into a gold mine.
As regards the discovery of Olympic Dam and your comment that the “exploration model was completely wrong”, WMC drilled at Olympic Dam for two reasons, both based on science.
1. Research had shown that if a mafic rock (dolorite or gabbro) containing magnetite is oxidised, a source of copper mineralising solutions is created. A large magnetic-gravity anomaly could be such a “source rock”. As drilling has so far not located the cause of the anomaly, it may well be that what was predicted will prove to be correct. Be careful of possible premature judgement!
2. A rock is most unlikely to be oxidised unless highly fractured, allowing penetration of oxidised fluids, hence, based on science, drilling focussed on a large magnetic-gravity anomaly where major structures of continental dimensions were predicted to have intersected, and hence fractured, the body of mafic rock if it was in fact the source of the anomaly. Deeper drilling may well prove this to be the case. We do know that the scientific prediction of major structures is 100% correct and the mineralisation follows such structures.
Roy Woodall, South Australia
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