Preliminary report on DM Callala DDH 1

Abstract

The drilling of DM Callala DDH 1 between Nowra and Jervis Bay was part of a Departmental drilling programme designed to obtain detailed information concerning coal measure sedimentation in relatively poorly known parts of the Sydney Basin (see locality plan, figure 1). This fully cored hole was drilled through the lower units of the Permian Shoalhaven Group to metamorphic basement, reaching a total depth of 1,919 feet (633 m). No economic coal was encountered, although 125 feet (38 m) of sediments referable to the Clyde/Yarrunga Coal Measures were penetrated.

Copper mineralization has two distinct modes of occurrence in the Tottenham — Albert district; as narrow, stratiform, pyritic bodies and as transgressive fissure-filling, quartz reefs. Disseminated mineralization may have been exploited at the Jimmy Woodser mine. Host rocks are mostly mica and chlorite-epidote schists, the latter possibly representing regionally metamorphosed basic volcanics. Primary mineralization of lodes in the Tottenham area appears to consist of massive pyrite with fine-grained inclusions of chalcopyrite and sphalerite and small to moderate amounts of non-sulphide gangue. At the Albert mines lodes are essentially quartzose with pyritic and cupriferous mineralization. The Mount Royal group of mines may represent a single lode formation that has been systematically cross-faulted.