Olympic Dam iron oxide Cu-U-Au-Ag deposit

The breccia-hosted Olympic Dam iron oxide Cu-U-Au-Ag deposit is located 560 km NNW of Adelaide (-30.44°, 136.87°) in the Olympic copper-gold province in northern South Australia (SA). The Prominent Hill and Carrapateena Cu-Au-U deposits are 150 km NW and 100 km SE of Olympic Dam respectively. The total resource (measured, indicated and inferred at September 2016) is 10 400 Mt at 0.77% Cu, 250 ppm U₃O₈, 0.32 g/t Au and 1 g/t Ag (Table 1). The resource footprint at the top of the Mesoproterozoic basement (that is, the unconformity around 350 m depth) is approximately 6 × 4 × 0.8 km, but with localised occurrences of mineralisation to over 2 km depth. The altered and mineralised rock volume associated with the deposit has an overall areal extent exceeding 50 km². Olympic Dam is the fifth largest copper, the largest reported uranium and one of the largest gold deposits in the world.