Tarcoola (and Tunkillia) gold prospects in South Australia's far north revived, a century after 1900-18 mining heyday
The battery (ore crusher), made by Forwood Down & Co. in Adelaide, at the original 1900-18 Tarcoola goldfields (top left). Barton Gold took a gold ore treatment mill (main image) from the Challenger mine to supports its 21st Century ambitions for Tarcoola and Tunkillia gold.
The Tarcoola goldfield, first worked in South Australia’s north from 1900 to 1918, had a strong revival, along with an associated nearby mine at Tunkillia, in the 21st Century.
Gold was first discovered in the Tarcoola area, 400 kilometres north northwest of Port Augusta, by a shearing-shed hand and prospector named Nichols in 1893. With more discoveries, a town grew from 2,000 people living on the gold fields by 1900. The town was named after the Tarcoola goldfields, in turn named after the 1893 Melbourne Cup horse race winner raised on Tarcoola Station on the Darling River.
Total recorded gold produced during Tarcoola field’s first life was 2,400 kilograms. The nearby Glenloth goldfield (1899) produced about 315 kilograms. Both Tarcoola and Glemloth goldfields had batteries (crushers) built by the South Australian government battery to process ore from small mines.
Sporadic mining continued in the area, taking total production between 1901 and 1954 to about 2.4 tonnesof gold, most of it from Tarcoola Blocks mine. Tarcoola, at the junction of the Sydney-Perth and Adelaide-Darwin railways, continued as a service centre for trains until 1998 when its populace further dwindled after its railways role was moved to Port Augusta.
Interest in gold prospects in South Australia’s Gawler Craton (home to Australia’s biggest gold source at Olympic Dam) saw Dominion Mining Ltd open the Challenger mine (named by its discoverer/geologist David Edgecombe after his dog) in 1995, about 150 kilometres southwest of Cooper Pedy. The mine changed hands to Kingsgate in 2010 and WPG Resources in 2015-18.
Initial drilling at Challenger intersected high grade ore but was unable to consistently hit the ore zones at depth. The mine was converted from open pit to underground mining in 2005. It also gained infrastructure including a treatment mill and mine village with aerodrome. Challenger produced 1.2 million ounces from 2002 to 2018.
When WPG Resources crumbled under its debt in 2018, its assets were taken over by Barton Gold. Those assets included the Challenger underground gold mine and mill, the Tarcoola project containing the Perseverance open pit and the Tunkillia gold deposit. Barton said the Challenger underground mine, so central to WPG Resources's aim, was not its focus, due to the mine's depth and the large investment needed to understand the extent of its gold deposit.
Barton Gold saw Tarcoola and Tunkillia as the real prize. But the Challenger gold treatment mill – the only one in the central Gawler Craton of South Australia – provided an attractive option for trucking and processing of ore from Barton Gold’s Tarcoola project, with Tunkillia mine only 70 kilometres away. Tarcoola and Tunkillia projects provided Barton with a total attributable mineral resource of 1.1 million ounces with additional exploration potential over 1,202 square kilometres at Tarcoola.
