Old & Abandoned Uranium Mines & Prospects
in the Northern Territory
Adelaide River - George Creek - Edith River
A small prospect discovered in the uranium exploration frenzy of the 1950's. Estimated to contain about 0.15 tonnes U3O8 (1). An exploratory mine shaft was established, more as an experiment just in case the prospect turned out to be commercial in size. The only recorded production from the experimental mine was 200 kg of U3O8 (2) (presumably trucked to Rum Jungle for treatment and processing). The deposit also contained copper (2).
The Cobar 2 uranium prospect is about 20 km north of the Pandanus Creek/Eva experimental mine, on the Northern Territory side of the border with Queensland. It was discovered in 1956 by A R Blackwell (9). There are several minor occurrences of uranium in this region, with the El Hussen and Monte Carlo prospects thought to be the most significant (7).
The area was thoroughly explored from the surface by the North Australian Uranium Corporation (NAUC - who were one of the main companies behind the environmental devastation at South Alligator mines) between August 1956 and August 1957 (7).
Limited test work was undertaken at seven of these sites, and included 1,307 feet (398.4 m) of underground openings (shafts or adits), 736 feet (224.3 m) of trenching to depths of 10 feet, 2,507 feet (764.1 m) of diamond drilling, and overburden removal by bulldozer of areas aggregating 60 acres (7).
Detail on the experimental mine developed at Cobar 2 is scarce, to say the least. The quantity of ore mined was about 78 tonnes with the extraordinary average grade of 10.52% U3O8 (9), to produce about 8.2 tonnes of U3O8 (5) by processing at Rum Jungle.
Excavation and test work also occurred at the El Hussen prospect (approximately 5.1 km south-west of Cobar 2), although no information is presently available (7).
The Pandanus Creek area is just 16 km west of the Queensland border, part of the broad Westmoreland region of uranium prospects. Two small experimental mines were operated on the NT side of the border at Pandanus Creek (also known as Eva), and the Cobar 2 deposit. The Pandanus Creek mine was the most significant.
The first uranium find at Pandanus Creek was made by R T Norris in 1955, and the following year Eva Clarke, Norris' niece, soon discovered the main orebody, simply by picking up yellow pebbles which Norris found to be radioactive (8) (10).
The Broken Hill Propreitary Co. Ltd. (BHP) explored and tested the deposit between 1958 and 1959. A deposit of some 55,000 t of ore averaging 0.56% U3O8 was delineated by drilling (10). The prospect was taken over and developed into a mine by South Alligator Uranium from 1960 to 1962 (8).
The uranium ore at Pandanus Creek was hand picked and trucked to Rum Jungle for treatment. The mine operated from 1960 to 1962 (4), extracting about 3,300 tonnes of ore at an average grade of 1.8% (11), hand sorted to about 306 tonnes of concentrate at the extraordinary grade of 8.37% (9, 10, 11), producing a total of 26.1 tonnes of U3O8 (5, 9). The mine was developed underground to a depth of 83 feet (25.3 metres) (8).
The spoil dump contains approximately 3,000 tonnes of of rock averaging over 1% U3O8 (about 30 tonnes U3O8) (8).
An exploration Joint Venture between Kratos Uranium NL (Aus) (35%) along with Wyoming Mineral Corporation (32.6%) and (through Minatome) Pechiney (32.4%), was undertaken at Pandanus Creek in the late 1970's, otherwise known as the Caramel prospect. Kratos apparently bought out Wyoming Mineral's interest in Pandanus Creek in late 1981, but though it now holds just over 50% of Pandanus Creek, both Kratos and Minatome have declined to pay out any more on exploration. Exploration appears to have stopped after about 1982.
A further joint venture for exploration of the Pandanus Creek propsect was undertaken by Carr Boyd Minerals Ltd, Esso Australia Ltd and Otter Exploration NL in 1979. Esso was enabled to earn a 51% interest in the prospect by executing and financing all exploration work by April 1986, and had (in 1979) an option to earn a further 4% by completing environmental impact studies (3).
All of the Pandanus Creek and Westmoreland leases are now apparently controlled by Canning Resources - proponent of the Kintyre uranium mine in the Rudall River National Park, WA. Canning Resources are a wholly owned subsidiary of multi-national Rio Tinto.
All of the above exploration has the potential to affect Aboriginal land claims in the area.
This a mine which has received extremely little attention -
If anyone has any more information, please let me know !
The ABC prospect, about 17 km north-west of Katherine, was one of the earliest uranium prospects discovered in the Northern Terriotory, closely following the work at Rum Jungle. In 1953 it was thought that the ABC deposit consisted of only 1,060 tonnes of ore averaging 0.4% U3O8 (2).
The George Creek experimental mine, about 14 km south of Adelaide River, was another of the earliest uranium prospects discovered in the Northern Terriotory, closely following the work at Rum Jungle. However, after the development of an experimental mine it was found to be quite small in size. A total of 120 tonnes of ore was mined, averaging 0.26% U3O8 (producing about 0.3 tonnes of U3O8, presumably at Rum Jungle or Rockhole), with remaining reserves of 250 tonnes of ore at similar grade.
The George Creek deposit consists of only 1,060 tonnes of ore averaging 0.4% U3O8 (2).
The Adelaide River uranium deposit is about 4 km south of the township of the same name and saw an operating mine up until it's closure in 1957. The company behind the project was Australian Uranium Corporation NL. A total of 3,860 tonnes of ore were extracted, averaging 0.5% U3O8, giving a production of about 19.3 tonnes of U3O8 (2). The ore was sold to the AAEC and treated at Rum Jungle.
The reserves remaining in the stopes were thought to be about 1,500 tonnes of ore averaging 0.5% U3O8. In 1960, the Bureau of Mineral Resources (BMR) drilled four bore holes and subsequently expanded the reserves remainnig to 5,600 tonnes of possible ore averaging 0.22% U3O8 (2).
The Edith River prospect is simply a uranium occurrence within granite (known geologically as the Cullen Granite). It is north-west of Katherine, and other occurrences include Fergusson River and Tennyson. The concentration isn't commercial nor the reserves large enough.
It was explored via an underground shaft by North Australian Uranium Corporation, until they diverted all manpower and equipment to work on Sleisbeck (3).
(1) - I H Crick, M D Muir, R S Needham & M J Roarty, 1979, The Geology and Mineralisation of the South Alligator Valley Uranium Field, Proceedings of the "Uranium in the Pine Creek Geosyncline", Sydney, June 4-8, 1979. Editded by J Ferguson & A B Goleby. Published by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Vienna, 1980.
(2) - R G Dodson & C E Prichard, 1975, Uranium in the Pine Creek Geosyncline. In : Economic Geology of Australia and Papua New Guinea 1. Metals, Ed. C L Knight, Monograph Series No. 5, Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM), Melbourne, Australia, pages 281-284.
(3) - R Annabell, 1977, The Uranium Hunters, Published by Rigby Limited.
(4) - Office of the Supervising Scientist, Uranium Mining in the Northern Territory, Fact Sheet (January 1996).
(5) - P W Crohn, 1975, Mineralization in the McArthur and Nicholson Basins. In : Economic Geology of Australia and Papua New Guinea 1. Metals, Ed. C L Knight, Monograph Series No. 5, Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM), Melbourne, Australia, pages 327-329.
(6) - J H Hills & V K Thakur, 1975, Westmoreland Uranium Deposits. In : Economic Geology of Australia and Papua New Guinea 1. Metals, Ed. C L Knight, Monograph Series No. 5, Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM), Melbourne, Australia, pages 343-347.
(7) - H J Newton & M G McGrath, 1958, The Occurrence of Uranium in the Milestone Authority to Prospect, Wollogorang District, Northern Territory. In : F L Stillwell Anniversary Volume, Published by Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM), 1958.
(8) - B D Morgan, 1965, Uranium Ore Deposits of Pandanus Creek. In : Geology of Australian Ore Deposits. 8th Commonwealth Mining and Metallurgical Congress, Australia and New Zealand, 1965. Ed. J McAndrew, Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM). pages 201-206.
(9) - Ahmad, M & A S Wygralak, 1990, Murphy Inlier - Regional Geology and Mineralisation. In : Geology of the Mineral Deposits of Australia and Papua New Guinea, Ed. F E Hughes, pp 819-826. Published by the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Melbourne, VIC.
(10) - Battey, G C, Miezitis, Y & McKay, A D, 1987, Australian Uranium Resources. Resource Report 1, Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology and Geophysics (aka "BMR"), Canberra, ACT, 76 p.
(11) - Fitzgerald, M L & Hartley, F R, 1965, Uranium. In "8TH Commonwealth Mining and Metallurgical Congress", Vol. 3, Chapter 9, Editor J T Woodcock, AusIMM, Melbourne, VIC, pp 211-227.
To convert from tonnes uranium (U) to tonnes uranium oxide (U3O8), multiply by 1.1793.
Last Updated - September 30, 1999.
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