Moke Creek Copper Mine

The Moke Creek copper lode is, a serpentinised olivine rock. The outcrop is very obscure, and highly weathered into a talcose serpentine, with remnants of massive dark-green serpentine.

This dyke is particularly interesting, in that an analysis of the serpentine showed it to contain 0.075 per cent. of copper. Copper - ores are frequently associated with magnesian rocks, and this proximity of a copper- bearing dyke to a copper lode strongly suggests that the ore in the lode has been formed from a previous concentration of the ore in an ultrabasic magma beneath.

From—Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand 1868-1961 - Hutton and Ulrich, “Geology of Otago” (Dunedin, 1875), p. 157

The Moke Creek sulphide deposit is the largest of several metamorphosed sulphide-rich horizons in the Otago Schist(These deposits have been used as indicators of potential base metal mineralisation in the Otago Schist by numerous mineral exploration companies over the past 140 year, although exploration has been unsuccessful thus far.