Mining Intelligence and News
Australia

Kara Mine

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Categories

Overview

Mine TypeOpen Pit
StatusActive
Commodities
  • Tungsten
  • Iron Ore
Mining Method
  • Truck & Shovel / Loader
Production Start... Lock
Mine Life... Lock
SnapshotProduction numbers has not been publicly available since 2017.

Owners

SourceSource
CompanyInterestOwnership
Tasmania Mines Ltd. 100 % Indirect

Deposit type

  • Skarn

Summary:

A number of magnetite skarns lie within, or adjacent to, the outcrops of the Housetop, Ringwood and Kara granites. Turner (1989) lists magnetite skarns at Kara No I, Kara No 2, Sutton's, Hampshire (near the railway crossing), Redwater Creek, Laurel Creek and Peak Hill Farm. In the past, these magnetite bodies were worked sporadically as sources of iron for steel making, for example, at Pearson's workings in the Kara No 2 Main deposit. Some of the magnetite skarns contain economic concentrations of scheelite, for example Kara No 1, Eastern Ridge, Bob’s Bonanza, Location 5 and Kara 266.

Several scheelite-magnetite skarns occur on the Kara mine lease. The skarns are developed within folded Ordovician limestone rocks which are in contact with Devonian granite.

"Several scheelite-bearing garnet-diopside magnetite-amphibole- vesuvianite skarns have formed at a transitional boundary between siliceous sandstone and quartzwacke (Moina Sandstone) and overlying Gordon Group limestone. Most deposits are within a synformal structure in the Ordovician sedimentary rocks which are underlain and intruded by porphyritic and equigranular biotite-hornblende granite of the magnetite-series of the Devonian Housetop Granite.

The main deposits are within a trough-like pendant of skarn within the Housetop Granite. At Kara No.1 ore-grade scheelite mineralisation forms an irregularly-shaped blanket draped 15 25 m above the granite. Between the skarn and the granite is a tungsten-poor, quartz-epidote reaction zone. Skarn lithologies are varied but there is a sharp division between magnetite dominant and garnet (grossular-andradite) dominant units.

Reserves

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Mining Methods

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

Milling equipment has not been reported.

Processing

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Production

CommodityUnits20162015
WO3 kt 0.020.04
All production numbers are expressed as concentrate.

Operational metrics

Metrics20162015
Ore tonnes mined 397,218 t386,462 t
Waste 416,257 t642,049 t
Tonnes processed 402,153 t391,897 t

Production Costs

Commodity production costs have not been reported.

Heavy Mobile Equipment

Fleet data has not been reported.

Personnel

Mine Management

Job TitleNameProfileRef. Date
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Jan 10, 2024

Aerial view:

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