Yilgarn Craton
The Balingup Complex consists primarily of metasedimentary paragneiss, granite orthogneiss, with minor layers of calc-silicate, ultramafic and ortho-amphibolite gneiss.
The Murchison Province Stratigraphy, after Watkins (1990), is divided into six basic structural-stratigraphic components - two greenstone belt metavolcanic-metasedimentary sequences and four suites of granitoids.
This impact may have ended the Huronian glaciation by climate forcing with a significant pulse of greenhouse gases, as the age broadly overlaps with the youngest glacial deposits.
The Archaean Norseman-Wiluna Greenstone Belt[6] in the Eastern Goldfield province contains most of Australia's lode gold deposits, including the famous Kalgoorlie Golden Mile containing the Super Pit.
An earlier gold event 2660-2655 Ma was associated with major extension (normal faulting and granite doming) resulting in the formation of late basins and the intrusion of mantle-derived magmas (syenites and Mafic-type granites/porphyries) and tight anticlockwise PTt paths.
[9] The Yilgarn Craton is bounded on the east-southeast by the ~1,300 Ma Albany-Fraser Orogen, composed primarily of amphibolite to greenschist facies sedimentary protolith gneisses, migmatites and granites.
The Albany-Fraser Orogen displays both subduction-related and prolonged strike-slip tectonic structures and is intimately interconnected with the other Proterozoic basins and mobile belts of Australia.
The Yilgarn Craton also has a considerable Tertiary and younger sedimentary veneer of palaeochannel deposits derived from prolonged erosion, sedimentation and redeposition of older cover sequences and regolith as well as the Archaean basement itself.
This is considered to have been produced during Caenozoic to Palaeocene tropical conditions, as evidenced by mottled duricrust which records fossilised tree roots, some over 60 million years old.
Ore concentrates or finished product are transported by rail or road to Perth, Fremantle, Esperance, Albany or Geraldton.
[citation needed][disputed – discuss] Major gold deposits occur at Kalgoorlie, Kambalda, Mount Magnet, Boddington, Laverton and Wiluna, and are hosted in greenstone belts.
These form linear belts of mafic, ultramafic and felsic volcanics, intercalated with sedimentary sequences, and have been deformed and metamorphosed.
The mode of occurrence of the gold mineralisation tends to be small- to medium-sized structurally controlled lodes, shears, and quartz veins.
The Kambalda Dome is located in the south-central part of the Archaean Norseman-Wiluna greenstone belt in the southeastern Yilgarn Craton.
Minor amounts of copper have been recovered from several copper-bearing gold deposits such as those in the Gullewa Greenstone Belt, at Burtville south of Laverton, at Granny Smith and elsewhere.
The geology of several volcanic belts in the Yilgarn Craton are strikingly similar to the world's great base-metal mines at Kidd Creek in Northern Ontario, Canada.
Smaller carbonatite occurrences at Ponton, near Laverton, and regionally within the eastern granite-gneiss and greenstone belts, may also prove economic.
The Yilgarn Craton and its cover sequences are host to a significant percentage of the world's endowment in economically demonstrable and recoverable reserves (EDR) of uranium.
Most uranium is hosted within palaeochannels derived from granites of the Yilgarn Craton and/or its flanking Proterozoic orogens, and this metal is deposited within Tertiary or younger palaeodrainage and current drainage systems.
World-class deposits in the eastern Yilgarn Craton include: Mount Charlotte, Norseman, Sunrise Dam, Sons of Gwalia, St Ives-Kambalda, Tarmoola, Wallaby and Wiluna.
