Australian Sapphire Reserves

Known Reserves

Australian Sapphire is found in numerous deposits along the Great Dividing Range in Eastern Australia from Tasmania to Queensland.

Most of these deposits are alluvial in nature and follow existing or former watercourses. The most widely held theory is that sapphire formed deep within the earths crust and was subsequently carried to the surface by volcanic activity. Basalt is often associated with Australian sapphire deposits. Generally sapphire has been eroded from this basaltic host and concentrated in various streams and river systems. Due to the high specific gravity of sapphire it does not travel far from its original source

In Australia there are three major deposits of sapphire that are or have been worked commercially.

These are:

The New England District in Northern New South Wales - centred on the Inverell - Glen Innes District and is mainly worked by Machinery miners although fossicking does occur

The Central Queensland Sapphire Gemfields - encompasses the towns of Anakie, Sapphire, Rubyvale and the Willows. It covers an area of 900 square kms. of sapphire bearing ground and is mined by larger machinery miners, smaller hand miners and hobbyist fossickers.

Lava Plains in North Queensland. - a remote and inhospitable field in the dry inland of Northern Queensland, that has been worked off and on by several machinery mining operations over the past 25 years. This area produces blue sapphire of exceptionally good colour.

Smaller known sapphire deposits are also found at:

New South Wales :

Barrington Tops , Gloucester Tops good blues and occasional rubies

Bingara - Narrabri, Area gold mining byproduct

Oberon and Porters Retreat Area, Native Dog Creek, Isabella River and Campbells river blue crystals

Mount Werong, Lanigans, Limeburners & Werong Creeks small occasional blue stones

Crookwell, Graben Gullen Creek, Wattle Creek, Wheeo Creek dark blue to mauve crystal fragments.

Berrima - Mittagong District, Winercarribee River small flawed stones

Hill End, Bald Hill, corundum and sapphire

Cudegong - Macquarie River system small dark gold mining byproduct

Mudgee, brown

Airly Mountain, gold and diamond mining byproduct, green fragments

Tumbarumba Area,    Ruby Creek & Reedy Flats, gold mining byproduct

Wee Jasper,     Jeremiah Creek & MacPhersons Swamp Creek, greens

Kiandra ,   Alluvial   greens, gold mining byproduct

Nimmitabel Area,    Maclaughlin River small blues

Shoalhaven River, Byproduct of gold sluicing

Queensland :

Atherton Tablelands

Tasmania :

Gladstone, Weldborough Weld River

genuine sapphire - made by nature

An Information Resource on the Australian Sapphire Industry