Great Central Mine, Mount Hope, Blaxland Co., New South Wales, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Great Central Mine	Mine (Abandoned)
Mount Hope	Mountain
Blaxland Co.	County
New South Wales	State
Australia	Country

This page is currently not sponsored. Click here to sponsor this page.

PhotosMapsSearchMineralogy

A former copper mine located approximately 5km South of Mount Hope. Dumps have been acid-leached.

The mine operated 1880 to 1940s with some latter heap leaching in the 1970s.

Named for being close to the geographical centre of NSW (at least according to the original prospectors). The lode was discovered in January 1874 by J. McDowell as a large area of surface gossan, ironstone seams and malachite staining in porphyry, and developed as a mine in 1878.

In November 1881 the Great Central Copper Mining Company Limited was formed which purchased the mine from McDowell, McKenzie and Party. Charles L. Cawse was appointed the mine manager.

By 1883 there were eight shafts sunk to a maximum 33 feet depth on oxidised and supergene ore of the Hodges lode, and the more northern Comet lode. In that year the mine produced 1,139 tons of ore for 137 tons of copper. The mine employed about 100 men increasing to 150 in 1885 with 863 tons of copper produced.

The mine closed late 1885 due to low copper prices and re-opened two years later when prices recovered. Operations ceased in March 1891.

The mine was purchased by a syndicate headed by W.S. Howard in December 1892 and placed on tribute. David Jones purchased the mine in 1897 and formed the Great Central Syndicate largely composed of Nymagee residents. They erected a new concentrator plant and produced limited copper until late 1899.

The Intercolonial Mines Purchase Option and Development Company NL purchased the mine in June 1900, then floated the Great Central Freehold Mines Ltd of Melbourne to investors to operate the site. The mine manager was J.G. Armstrong. Large scale plant upgrades ensued just as the copper price collapsed again. The new machinery was sold and removed by 1906 and the site abandoned.

The site is along a north-south ridgeline of porphyry less the one kilometre west of the main highway south of Mount Hope. It contains ruins from the 1890's/1900 processing plant, altered original open cut, various leached tailings and minor diggings. The site was investigated by government geologists in the 1940's and 1950's, however the underground workings were not fully accesable by this stage.

Shafts were named as Hodges, Blue, McKenzie, Malberg, North and West, with Comet 300 metres further north along the ridgeline. Whether they can still be identified today is uncertain. When checked in 2026 there was a new exploration company hut at the site.

The Great Central mine is located in a north-south band of quartz-felspar porphyry (rhyolite to dactic crystal lithic tuff, seritised and chloritised in part, lapilli tuff, lava, or rhyodactic porphyry), in the mine area near the contact with breccia (lithic tuff breccia, chloritic siltstone, and minor flow banded rhyolite and chert in silaceous matrix). The hanging wall is hard breccia and footwall laminated rhyolite. Minor shale is in the lode having found its way there during intrusions and ground movements.

There are two types of lodes at Great Central. The first is narrow steep dipping bodies in shear zones with ore in shoots, while the second is an eliptical area of stockwork with mineralisation in small veins distributed irregularly across the area but less near the margins. Sporadic mineralisation occurs to the north towards the Comet lode.

The lode is fissure veins dipping 80 degrees west to vertical, striking near to north-south, averaging 3 feet wide, and 500 feet in length. Fisher 1940's observed minor malachite, marcasite and pyrite on the tailings dump. No chalcocite or secondary enrichment was observed from the dumps. The copper ore mined was chalcopyrite as stringers and disseminated sparsely into the porphyry as blebs and tiny veinlets. Minor bornite and pyrrhotite was noted associated with the chalcopyrite. Malachite staining along faults. At depth was black oxide and large heavy slugs of native copper.

A 2019 NSW Mineralogical Society trip found azurite specimens on the dumps.

Commodity List

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

Mineral List

14 valid minerals.

Rock Types Recorded