HEFFERNAN’S WOLFRAM MINE TORRINGTON NSW AUSTRALIA

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0.5 carat facetted beryl

Heffernan’s Mine (Heffernan Brother’s Mine) is one of the classic mineral collecting localities at Torrington. 

It is on private property (Highland Home) north of the Butler Mine/Mystery Face road, as marked on the map, which locates both the mine’s location and the Butler Mine turnoff from the Silent Grove road. 

The map itself is taken from the Torrington (Mole Tableland) map referred to in a previous Blog. As you will see, there are numerous other mines and prospects nearby, both on the private land and in the Conservation Area. Heffernan’s Mine is identified as 0272.

Rasmus (1969) reports on this location as follows:

“ML 52, Parish Highland Home, County Gough. This deposit was proved by shallow shafts and trenches for a distance of about 400 feet. The deepest shaft was about 40 feet. The lode strikes 030° in granite. The lode at the southern end of the deposit consists of decomposed micaceous rock, with vugs containing quartz, feldspar and mica crystal aggregates and occasional prisms of beryl. The wolframite occurs in bunches and is not continuous. At the northern end of the deposit the lode consists of aplite with small amounts of wolframite distributed throughout.”

I have collected there several times and always came back with small, but well-formed quartz crystals, and some pale green beryl.

Specimens are 2-3 cm across

Many people have been here over the years, so if you succeed in getting permission to go into the site, you will have to work for your finds.

Please let us know in the comments section of any previous finds you may have made here and if you succeeded in gaining access to the site.

There is more information in the 1993 Minerama book “Beryl” and in the Gemstones books downloadable from DIGS.  Also worth downloading is the Mineral Industry booklet “Tungsten No. 41, complied by PL Rasmus, April 1969”. The DIGS reference is Industry 41.

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