Structural and lithological controls on the high-grade Hangingwall Reef quartz-gold veins, Stawell, Victoria

Abstract

The Hangingwall reefs are high-grade auriferous quartz lodes that occur in the upper levels of the Magdala mine at Stawell, and thus represent an important deposit style in western Victoria. Structural relationships indicate that the Hangingwall Reefs formed coincident with the same metallogenic event that produced the adjacent Magdala deposit. However, the host-rocks to the quartz - gold veins that make up the Hangingwall Reefs display markedly different structural and stratigraphic relationships. Hangingwall Reef mineralisation occurred during east - west shortening in a muscovite-altered turbidite sequence that had little prior iron alteration (cf. Magdala deposit). Lithological and struc..