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Mines/Australia

Bendigo goldfield mine

Bendigo goldfield mine, Australia. Closed, underground, mining gold.

Why Bendigo goldfield is famous

Gold found in October 1851, with about 400,000 oz a year through the 1850s. The first reefs opened in 1854, output was about 200,000 oz a year around 1900, and 1917 output was a quarter of the 1904 level.1,2

Story cards

Timeline

  1. from July 1851Victorian gold rush3
  2. 1869Welcome Stranger nugget found4

What kind of deposit

Orogenic gold (low-sulphide gold-quartz veins)

Bendigo goldfield today

Where gold is mined todayMining in Australia

Where next

Mines

Same kind of depositGolden Mile, Kalgoorlie-BoulderThe Golden Mile was found in 1893. Bendigo's first reefs opened in 1854.5

Events

HereVictorian gold rushBendigo's gold, found in October 1851, ran at about 400,000 oz a year in the 1850s.1HereWelcome Stranger nugget foundA mine from the same area and mineral story: Bendigo goldfield.4

Places

Located inBendigoBendigo goldfield sits at Bendigo.1

Deposit types

An example ofOrogenic gold (low-sulphide gold-quartz veins)Bendigo goldfield belongs to the orogenic gold family of deposits.6

Sources

  1. Bendigo Victorian Places
  2. Wikidata entity Q497793
  3. Year Book Australia 1911, gold chapter Australian Bureau of Statistics
  4. Australian Mineral Facts: Gold Geoscience Australia
  5. Kalgoorlie Eastern Goldfields Historical Society
  6. Mineral Deposit Models (Bulletin 1693, Cox and Singer, eds., 1986) US Geological Survey

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Super Pit, Kalgoorlie by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0.