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DATE: Thursday, 12th September, 2002. 5.30pm for 6pm
VENUE: Rugby Club, Rugby Place, Circular Quay
PRESENTERS: Mark Arundell and Simon Gatehouse
"Seeing Through Alluvial Gold :
Fine fraction Stream Sediment Sampling in the Sofala area, Central New South
Wales"
Extensive gold mining activity – dominantly alluvial – has taken place in the Sofala-Wattle Flat
area since the 1850s. It was considered that this work would have located most, if not all, of the
significant coarse gold sources in the current stream systems. Associated element signatures e.g.
As and other chalcophiles, would probably enable the non-alluvial signatures to be distinguished,
however non gold bearing mineralisation may also contain such signatures.
Overall, it was considered that conventional BCL sampling was likely to be misleading. To
improve on BCL sampling, a small (25g), -120# sample was collected in order to screen coarse
grained gold anomalism. The results of this sampling program led to immediate identification
and, ultimately, the successful delineation of the Spring Gully gold deposit near Wattle Flat.
Mark Arundell graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1985 with BSc(Hons) and
completed a M Econ Geol at CODES in 1998. During ten years with RGC, he worked as a mine
geologist in Tasmania, Northern Territory & New South Wales and as an exploration geologist
throughout Australia. Mark joined North Ltd in 1995 as Senior Exploration Geologist with the
Goonumbla/Northparkes team and, later, the Cowal Gold project. Mark relocated with North to
Perth in 1999 to work on the Yakabindie Nickel project and Fe-Ox Cu-Au projects in Australia.
Since early 2000, Mark has been working as a Consultant Geologist for various clients including
Rio Tinto Exploration, Newcrest, North Ltd, Peak Gold Mines and Argyle Diamonds.
Simon Gatehouse is a graduate of the University of Tasmania. He has spent most of his
geoscience career as an exploration geochemist firstly with Geopeko, then successively with
RGC and North Ltd. Though his work has been dominantly across most of Australia and its near
neighbors to the north he has also worked in West Africa. South America USA and Sweden over
the recent past. In April 2001, Simon joined the Ores Deposit processes group of CSIRO
Exploration Mining with a particular focus in developing new approaches and models for the
measurement of primary zonation around mineralisation. Together with the University of NSW
CSIRO is developing GRAMME (The Geochemical Research Alliance for Modeling and
Mapping in Exploration) to further exploration geochemical research in Australia.
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