The history of Gold mining at the O’Loughlins Prospect is not well documented. This is primarily due to its early discovery pre-dating the formation of the Geological Survey of Victoria (1852) and lack of available historical data on their early years.

However, the one of first Mining district map of the Ballarat Region has the Glasgow and Enfield Reefs mined as hard rock mines from this period.

Figure 1 Historical Map of the Ballarat Mining District complied by the Surveyor General’s Office. 1859

Other historic mentions of the prospect have sited the difficulties in extracting gold from the Glasgow reef due to the disseminated nature of the mineralisation. These difficulties are believed to be the reasons why little historical mining of this reef.

Historic production is unknown.

The Gold of the O’Loughlins Goldfield is hosted in a sequence of Sandstone – Siltstone metasediments tightly folded in a north-south trending orientation. Gold bearing fluids flow up fault systems which brittlely break and crack the metasediments. The remnants of these fault systems are the quartz veins. The gold tends to be deposited on areas where these fault systems intersect the crests and troughs of the folded metasediments.

With little documented historical reporting of the mines in the area and little current exploration in the area; the local geology is not firmly understood. However, it is expected to display similar characteristics to other deposits in Victoria with mineralisation occurring as saddle reefs, fault reefs and spurs. So far only spur style mineralisation has been identified in the modern exploration.

Figure 2 Typical styles of Gold Mineralisation across Victoria.

Determining and mapping the fold architecture of the hosting metasediments to better search for saddle reefs and fault reefs is the next step for modern exploration.