Overview

Mine Type	Open Pit
Status	Active
Commodities	Iron Ore
Mining Method	Truck & Shovel / Loader
Production Start	...
Snapshot	The Firetail is a part of the Solomon Hub iron ore operation.

Deposit type

• Bedded Iron (BID)

Summary:

Solomon Hub Deposits – Firetail, Kings and Queens. The Solomon Project area is situated approximately 60km to the north of the Tom Price township in the northern Hamersley ranges. Outcropping geology in the project area is dominated by the Dales Gorge, Whaleback Shale and Joffre Members of the Brockman Iron Formation which hosts large bedded iron deposits (BID) throughout the Hamersley Province. The Firetail deposit comprises the majority of BID tonnes at Solomon, where geologically favourable environments have allowed for the formation and preservation of large tonnages of bedded iron mineralisation.

Incised into the bedrock geology are regional palaeochannel systems, predominantly one to two kilometres in width, and stretching for tens of kilometres. During the Miocene period, deep chemical weathering and erosion of iron rich material into these fluvial channels has formed channel iron deposits (CID). The CID is subdivided into an upper ‘hard CID’ and a lower ‘ochreous CID’, there is also a semi-continuous middle CID layer which is difficult to detect with RC drilling. Clay lenses within the CID are observed as semi-discrete bands, often several meters thick. The clay lenses are somewhat discontinuous and of a poddy nature although often traceable between drill holes. CID of approximately 40km strike length is preserved in the Kings CID system, with an additional 25km of CID located in the Serenity deposit to the west. Other CID occurrences are also known throughout the Solomon project area. The material overlying the CID (and other areas) has been eroded from adjacent mineralised and un-mineralised bedrock. This clastic material is concentrated into horizons of elevated iron grade termed detrital iron deposits (DID), which forms part of the sequence of overlying late Tertiary aged alluvial and colluvial deposits.

Mineralisation within the Solomon area is hosted by buried Channel Iron Deposits (CID), Bedded mineralisation (BID and Detrital mineralisation (DID). Outcropping geology in the area is the Dales Gorge, Whaleback Shale and Joffre Members of the Brockman Iron Formation which contain the BID mineralisation. Incised into this bedrock geology are the large Channel systems which contain the DID and CID mineralisation.

Firetail: The bedded mineralisation has a strike length of 7km and outcrops on the north and south limbs of an anticline. Mineralisation is strata bound, has an average thickness of 20m and extends to a depth of 100m below surface in places.

Mining Methods

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

Processing

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Production

Personnel

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