Product catalogue
Geology of the Broken Hill ore deposit, Broken Hill, NSW
The lead-silver-zinc ore deposit of Broken Hill, New South Wales, is among the great ore deposits of the world because of its size, richness, and continuity. To the end of 194.6, approximately £50,000,000 in dividends had been won from recoverable metals worth £210,500,000 gross contained in 63,800,000 tons of ore. The deposit is a hypothermal deposit of Pre-Cambrian age resulting from the selective replacement of two closely adjacent, tightly and complexly folded stratigraphic rock layers. The original sedimentary rocks of the area now consist of tightly folded sillimanite-garnet gneisses with subordinate thin quartzite beds. These contain numerous folded sills of augen gneiss (granite), amphibolite (gabbro), and pegmatite. Post-folding peridotite, granite and pegmatite occur. Probably after considerable uplift and erosion, thin dykes of diabase (dolerite) were intruded, then pegmatite dykes and silicifying solutions, and finally ore-bearing solutions. The folds of the region are tight; steeply inclined, and extremely complex structures resulting from plastic deformation. Individual minor folds were studied in great detail by a method of axial-plane and axial-line analysis. An angular relationship exists between minor and major folds due to strain under torsional stresses. The regional pitch is flatly south. However, sudden reversals of pitch and divergences of pitch in adjacent folds are common. Second-order folds or folded folds exist. Cutting and offsetting the folds are buckles with vertical axes and crush zones of schisted rocks resulting from post-folding but pre-ore faulting movements. The lode occurs in a belt of attenuation between a wide arch on the west and a wide basin on the east. It consists of ma3sive lead-zinc-sulphide replacement orebodies forming (before erosion) a long continuous, irregular, flat, curving pencil of ore, 2,000 to 3,000 feet high and 300 feet thick. In longitudinal section it describes a flat arc pitching downward at each end. The lead lodes resulted from the selective replacement of two closely adjacent, highly folded, favourable beds. Each lode is distinguishable by its gangue mineralogy and metal ratios. No.3 Lens (the lower) has fluoritic rhodonitic gangue and comparatively high Zn:Pb and Ag:Pb ratios. No. 2 Lens, the upper, has calcitic gangue and comparatively low Zn :Pb and Ag :Pb ratios. At least three zinc lodes, with similar mineralogy, occur at higher stratigraphic horizons at the south end of the field. There is little observable zoning. Ore solutions are believed to have migrated up the regional pitch from the south. Intra-mineralization fracturing helped to localize ore shoots within favourable formations.
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Publication)
- 1952-01-01T00:00:00
- Citation identifier
- Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/217
- Cited responsible party
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Publisher Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology and Geophysics
Canberra Author Gustafson, J.K.
1 Author Burrell, H.C.
2 Author Garretty, M.D.
3
- Name
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Bulletin
- Issue identification
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020
- Point of contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Custodian Corp
Owner Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Custodian Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice
- Topic category
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- Geoscientific information
Extent
))
- Maintenance and update frequency
- Unknown
Resource format
- Title
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Product data repository: Various Formats
- Website
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Data Store directory containing the digital product files
Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes
- Keywords
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GA Publication
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Bulletin
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- Theme
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geology
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- Keywords
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AU-NSW
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- Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)
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Earth Sciences
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- Keywords
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Published_External
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Resource constraints
- Title
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
- Alternate title
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CC-BY
- Edition
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4.0
- Access constraints
- License
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- License
Resource constraints
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Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Distribution Information
- Distributor contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Distributor Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice
- OnLine resource
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Download the Bulletin (pdf)
Download the Bulletin (pdf)
- Distribution format
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pdf
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Resource lineage
- Statement
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Unknown
- Hierarchy level
- Non geographic dataset
- Other
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GA Publication
- Description
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Source data not available.
Metadata constraints
- Title
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Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
Metadata
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urn:uuid/a05f7892-7fec-7506-e044-00144fdd4fa6
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GeoNetwork UUID
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- Contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Document
- Name
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Legacy AGSO BMR Bulletins
Alternative metadata reference
- Title
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Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with
uuid
- Citation identifier
- eCatId/217
- Date info (Revision)
- 2018-04-20T06:09:28
- Date info (Creation)
- 1996-10-29T00:00:00
Metadata standard
- Title
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AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-3
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Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014
- Edition
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Version 2.0, September 2018
- Citation identifier
- https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551