DATE: Thursday 22nd March 2001, 5.30pm for 6pm
VENUE: Rugby Club, Crane Place, Circular Quay
SPEAKER: Frank Greene
TOPIC: “The Nagambie Gold Deposit – Waranga Victoria.” Hill 158, site of the central Victorian Nagambie open cut gold deposit, was first examined on Sunday morning, 20 May 1984 as part of an orderly exploration program in search of a large volume, low grade, open cut gold deposit.
The program began 22 November 1982 with a transient tour of the Victorian central goldfields followed six months later by a more formal reconnaissance survey that lasted for two years and two months to date of discovery (20/05/84).
Wide ranging, reconnaissance investigations were designed to
A) identify, rate, and record critical geological and gold ore relationships for creation of an ore deposit model, and
B) select an area within which the sought after deposit was most likely to be found.
Results of the reconnaissance investigation favored the contiguous Heathcote, Redcastle, and Rushworth State Forests and adjacent Bailieston and Costerfield goldfields as the prime exploration region.
Decisive ore deposit model features were detailed under the headings of: Distribution, Physiography, Magnitude, Host Rock, Structural Control, Regional Faulting, Igneous Activity, Mining Activity, and Ore Mineralogy.
Examination of priority rated areas, five of which are described and two of which became open cut gold mines, was commenced easterly from the Heathcote Forest and terminated with Hill 158, 7 km east of Nagambie.
Hill 158 was, fortunately, examined out of order for reasons more of curiosity and convenience than of priority. Its only favorable ore search features were “a landform of prominent relief on a reasonable strike with the Whroo Structural Zone”, and the day would have been wasted had the site been bypassed.
My journal entry at the end of the day states,
Depart Chiltern goldfield for the Redcastle goldfield. On the way I checked out Sil. Dev. o/c areas east of Nagambie: One area, 7.3 km east of Nagambie (4246/2635) has been previously prospected with probable minimal yields, but it does exhibit excellent pervasive silicic, argillic, and limonitic alteration.
Pulled into my old camp in the Redcastle Forest around 4 pm;
Results of a solitary rockchip sample, taken from a forested portion of the hill, yielded in ppm 0.12 Au, 136 As and 21 Sb …….. Eureka!!
A Short Biography (1928 – ).
Frank, an American (US) by birth and an Aussie by choice, earned his BSc (57) and MSc (60) degrees in Geology and Forestry at Oregon State University with no small thanks to the US Marine Corps (1945-49) and the GI Bill.
His professional career commenced with Bear Creek Mining Company, a Kennecott subsidiary, as a minerals exploration geologist in the Basin and Range province USA in the search for porphyry copper deposits and later, with several other US based companies, for base and precious metals, in the American Southwest, Canada, Mexico, Bolivia, and Panama.
By 1965 he was in the Southwest Pacific, Australia-based, where he worked for Placer Prospecting and later International Nickel in PNG and the Solomons, and Dillingham Mining as their Chief Geologist in Queensland and the Northern Territory.
He has been a consultant to the exploration industry from 1972 to present, during which time he has three mine discoveries to his credit: Rutherfords Table, a deep lead gold deposit, Burdeken River, Queensland; Macalister coal deposit, a 21 m thick bituminous seam, Macalister, Queensland; and, the Nagambie open cut gold deposit, Nagambie, Victoria.
He claims his best discoveries are a beaut Aussie wife, Meggie, and his Australian citizenship.