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Tasmanian Events Sponsors & News

TASMANIAN WEEKEND SEMINAR NEWS

TAS Branch News

News from the Deep South!
The Tasmanian branch held their technical and social weekend. We normally hold these events in November to wind up the years events, but due to outside influences( Super cars on same weekend in Tasmania) we changed dates to Feb. This did effect our numbers on the day as February is very busy for a lot of members. Some still on leave and lots of other events happening. Still we went ahead.
Again we "coerced" our intrepid guide Ron Bugg, retired Geologist, TAS Minerals Council Education officer and part time sailor to arrange the programme for the day.
Our accommodation was at The Silver Ridge Retreat located on the north west coast of Tasmania right under the spires of Mt Roland (near Cradle Mountain). But view out the back of our units was boring! 

Our excursion on Saturday was to the Mt Claude-Moina Mining areas.
First off Ron got out the geology maps and explained to us about the area. The Mt Claude and Moina areas are highly mineralised and have been subject to extensive mining in the late 1800's and 1900's, and under continuous exploration to this day. There are no mines operating in the area at present.
Minerals mined include gold, tin, tungsten and silver lead. Associated with these minerals are semiprecious gemstones including topaz,beryl,zircon and also rarely found sapphires. Quartz crystals are common, and yes we found some good samples of these!
Our trip started off by going to the Mt Roland lookout which gave us a good view over the area and an understanding our how the area was formed, with the erosion of the rivers exposing the mineral wealth to the old timers. At the lookout we inspected a lump of high grade haematite( iron ore) that is in a vein and very obvious in its colour, purple red against the white waste rock ("Crapite" as Graham Smith called it)
We then drove to Cethana and bushwalked down the old Lorina Rd, to the powerful creek bridge to look at a recent( closed in 1980s) silver- lead mine that was worked at the creek level.
The recent floods have heavily eroded the river bed( dropped by 1.8m) making it interesting and challenging to get to the mine site.

 
On the way back up the cars some members were spotted helping themselves to Blackberries that were ripe for picking.
We then had launch at Lemontyne Lodge, which is one of the more popular accommodation venues near Cradle Mountain.
In the afternoon we went to the Star Hill Mine which was a deep slot- surface and underground operation. At this site Graham and Frank were off in the bush looking closely at the remains of a double toggle crusher made in Melbourne and now upside down. I think they had ideas for it.
It was here that we found some very nice quartz crystals also. We also tried to find the "Iris Mine" and shaft but didn't really do any good.
The last site we visited was the Shepherd and Murphy mine site at Monia. This mine has had a double life. It was worked in the 1920's then reopened and redeveloped in the 1950’s. It turns out that Frank Carpenter's great Grandfather once worked at the mine hence the photo of Frank ( in the white shirt)standing on the old concrete mill site

The next day we took Paul Sutton our GM to look at an old Silver Mine –Adit, that went in 42m. It was  mined in the 1870's and is still open. It is sort of dry and home to cave spiders and glow worms. Tthen Ron showed Paul how the old timers did gold panning with some good results( yes the gravel we panned had been "salted") 

Many thanks too Paul for travelling to Tasmania to meet our small branch and join us at our meeting on Sunday where he talked to members about his new role, the PDP programme and QMCS.
Thanks also to the venue for looking after us all (I can advise that no one played up). Maybe this was due to Ian Smith, local retired IQA member not being there due to Rotary duties

And it was Frank’s turn to get a flat tyre!
That's all from Tasmania