Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	31° 14' 51'' South , 119° 19' 11'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-31.24751,119.31979
GeoHash:	G#: qdky5pw40
Locality type:	Mine
Köppen climate type:	BSk : Cold semi-arid (steppe) climate

The Maori Lass Gold Mine is 2 kilometres south-west of Southern Cross, and 500 metres south-west of the Fraser's Gold Mine. Maori Lass is a small water filled open pit which borders the east side of the Southern Cross South Road. The concrete lined dam noted in historic accounts can still be seen next to the pit.

Some prospecting work is said to have been undertaken in the early years at the location, to little effect, and no information further was found on it. The place sprang to life in 1911, when a Perth/Adelaide syndicate took out the lease. The principal owners were John Wallace Durack, Frances Connor (M.L.A), William Lauchlin Sanderson, Alexander Sanderson, and Louis August Heinrich Knoop.

A 20 metre (to the water level) open cut and some costeans were dug to test the lode. One source states the geology resembles the Copperhead mine at Bullfinch. The lode is opaline jasper according to one source, and in another becomes arsenical at depth. There are two lodes, thought to be a continuation of the Transvaal lodes, that mine 1.5 kilometres further south. Various reports give wildly differing widths of the lode from 5 to 70 feet.

In early 1914, a 10 head battery was erected. The first crushing showed poor values, and this did not improve over the next 6 months, at which point the mine closed. The battery was sold and removed to the Mt Rankin Mine elsewhere in the district in 1916.

Commodity List

This is a list of exploitable or exploited mineral commodities recorded at this locality.

Mineral List

5 valid minerals.

Regional Geology

This geological map and associated information on rock units at or nearby to the coordinates given for this locality is based on relatively small scale geological maps provided by various national Geological Surveys. This does not necessarily represent the complete geology at this locality but it gives a background for the region in which it is found.

Click on geological units on the map for more information. Click here to view full-screen map on Macrostrat.org

Archean 2500 - 4000 Ma ID: 742933

undivided metamorphosed igneous and sedimentary rocks 74367 Age: Archean (2500 - 4000 Ma) Description: Komatiitic basalt, quartz-muscovite-andalusite schist, basalt, dacitic porphyry, granite with greenstone rafts, agglomerate, talc schist, banded gneiss, quartzite, amphibolite, schist, ultramafic rocks, banded iron formation, dolerite, granite Comments: igneous mafic volcanic; meta-igneous ultramafic; synthesis of multiple published descriptions Lithology: Igneous mafic volcanic; meta-igneous ultramafic Reference: Raymond, O.L., Liu, S., Gallagher, R., Zhang, W., Highet, L.M. Surface Geology of Australia 1:1 million scale dataset 2012 edition. Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia). [5]

Neoarchean - Mesoarchean 2500 - 3200 Ma ID: 3193082

Archean crystalline metamorphic rocks Age: Archean (2500 - 3200 Ma) Comments: Yilgarn Craton Lithology: Gneiss Reference: Chorlton, L.B. Generalized geology of the world: bedrock domains and major faults in GIS format: a small-scale world geology map with an extended geological attribute database. doi: 10.4095/223767. Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 5529. [154]

Data and map coding provided by Macrostrat.org, used under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License

References