The Maranboy tin field, Northern Territory  

Authors / CoAuthors

Walpole, B.P.

Abstract

The Maranboy Tin-field is situated 40 miles south-east of the township of Katherine, in the Northern Territory of Australia. The field is in a small inlier of Lower Proterozoic sediments surrounded by unmineralized sediments of Cambrian and Cretaceous age. The ore mineral is cassiterite, which occurs in fine-grained quartz-tourmaline fissure-lodes. The lodes are infillings of a conjugate system of shear fractures which strike at 110° and 160°. Available production figures from the field show that from 1915 to 1952, 49,314 long tons of ore were won, from which tin oxide concentrates containing 800.57 long tons of tin were recovered, giving an average grade (by recovery) of 1.66 per cent. Sn. A detailed assessment of the field has shown that of the numerous cassiterite bearing lodes only three can be considered as likely to yield large tonnages of ore in the future. These are the Main Lode, Stannum King Lode, and Cosmopolitan Lode. The data obtained from detailed mapping, sampling, and production records show that they may contain an aggregate of 2,767 tons of ore, assaying 1.23 per cent Sn, per foot of depth. Selective mining by small operators would, as it has in the past, raise the grade with a concomitant reduction in the aggregate of tons of ore per foot of depth. The continued life of the field is dependent upon testing the probable continuance or repetition of ore-shoot at depth, the institution of more efficient mining methods, and the provision of adequate and efficient milling facilities.

Product Type

document

eCat Id

236

Contact for the resource

Keywords

• GA PublicationBulletin

• AU-NT

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)

• Earth Sciences

• Published_External

Publication Date

1958-01-01T00:00:00

Creation Date

Security Constraints

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem    

Classification - unclassified

Legal Constraints

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence    

Access - license

Use - license

Status

Purpose

Maintenance Information

unknown

Topic Category

geoscientificInformation

Series Information

Bulletin 037

Lineage

Unknown

Parent Information

Extents

[-15.0, -14.5, 132.5, 133.0]

Reference System

Spatial Resolution

Service Information

Associations

Downloads and Links

Download the Bulletin (pdf)  

Source Information

Source data not available.