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Mines/Australia

Kalgoorlie mine

Kalgoorlie mine, Australia. Producing, open pit and underground, mining gold since 1989.

Why Kalgoorlie is famous

Kalgoorlie Super Pit (KCGM) is Australia's best-known open-pit gold mine. USGS lists it fourth among Australian gold mines in 2021 with 15,200 kg, behind Boddington (21,600 kg), Cadia East (18,600 kg) and Fosterville (15,900 kg). Paddy Hannan, Thomas Flanagan and Dan Shea found about 100 oz of alluvial gold at Mount Charlotte in June 1893. The Golden Mile has since produced about 58 Moz. Alan Bond bought leases on the Golden Mile in the 1980s but his company did not finish the merger. The leases were combined in 1989 and KCGM formed to run the Super Pit. KCGM poured its 16 millionth ounce from Fimiston in March 2014. The pit was about 3.5 km long, 1.5 km wide and more than 600 m deep.1,2,3

Story cards

Timeline

  1. June 1893Hannan finds gold at Kalgoorlie5

What kind of deposit

Orogenic gold (low-sulphide gold-quartz veins)

Kalgoorlie today

Where gold is mined todayMining in Australia

Where next

Mines

HereSt IvesSt Ives lies 75 km south-south-east of Kalgoorlie. It made 369.6 koz of gold in 2025.6ExamplesMuruntauTwo giant open-pit gold mines: Muruntau in Uzbekistan and the Super Pit at Kalgoorlie.7

Events

Led toHannan finds gold at KalgoorlieRead what happened near Kalgoorlie: Hannan finds gold at Kalgoorlie.1

Places

Located inKalgoorlie-BoulderKalgoorlie is about 3 km from Kalgoorlie-Boulder.1Located inCoolgardieKalgoorlie is about 38 km from Coolgardie.1

Deposit types

An example ofOrogenic gold (low-sulphide gold-quartz veins)Kalgoorlie belongs to the orogenic gold family of deposits.8

Sources

  1. Minerals Yearbook 2020-21, volume III: The Mineral Industry of Australia US Geological Survey
  2. data/minerals/operations.csv Prospector Trails (internal)
  3. Kalgoorlie's greatest asset (16 July 2015) Australian Mining Review
  4. Year Book Australia 1911, gold chapter Australian Bureau of Statistics
  5. The Rush for Gold (WA Goldfields) Western Australian Museum
  6. Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2025 Gold Fields Limited (SEC)
  7. Setting of Muruntau gold: discovery history Virtual Explorer
  8. 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.