Jamieson Mercury mine, Quicksilver creek, Jamieson, Mansfield Shire, Victoria, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Jamieson Mercury mine	Mine
Quicksilver creek	Creek
Jamieson	- not defined -
Mansfield Shire	Shire
Victoria	State
Australia	Country

The Mercury Mine is approx. 13 km E of Jamieson, 200 metres south of the junction of Quicksilver Creek and the Jamieson River.
The occurrence was first reported in the Bendigo Independent newspaper on Friday March 16th, 1894. "The deposit was discovered when a miner, working a near-dry riverbed for gold, panned off a quantity of 'quicksilver'. Working up the stream he discovered that the mercury cut out at a type of 'dyke' forming a bar across the stream. Breaking into the rock he found it impregnated with fine globules of mercury".

Initially they had exposed the deposit by means of a trench 6 metres long and 1.3 metres deep below the water line. The load could be traced for 40 metres in the creek bed but not beyond.
By 1901, a shaft 43 metres deep had been sunk in the bed of the creek with a drive of 35 metres from the 24 metre level. Despite sporadic attempts to mine the deposit, ore had not been found in payable quantities.
"The deposit itself is within a near vertical fissure striking across the general strike of the sediments of the Donnelley Creek Siltstone. The load consisted of crushed grey talcose country rock intersected by sporadic small quartz veins. Well defined, it varied in thickness between 30 cm and 1.9 metres. Mineralisation, in the form of native mercury, was concentrated within the 30 cm thick zone along both walls of the wider parts of the lode, but distributed evenly where the lode was narrow".

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References