Thackaringa is a rural locality, civil parish, railway stop and cattle station in Far Western New South Wales.[1]

Yancowinna, shown in a map from 1886.

Location edit

Thackaringa is located at 141.0623°, −32.0245°, 489.263 km from Sydney and between Cockburn, South Australia on the border with South Australia and by Silverton in the north-east. Thackaringa is at an altitude of approximately 204m.[2]

Geography edit

Thackaringa is arid and sparsely settled with the economy derived mainly from broad acre agriculture, though some mining occurs.[3] Thackaringa is on the Silverton Tramway and Thackaringa railway station operated from 2 January 1889 until 12-Jan-1970.[4][5]

The nearest town is Cockburn, South Australia.

Geology edit

The northern part of the district is cut by a large retrograde shear zone containing large garnets and refractory minerals.... There are many other small mineral deposits found in the Thackaringa district where quartz veins and/or granitic rocks have crystallised including the Thackaringa davidite belt and pods of large rutile crystals.[6]

Climate edit

Thackaringa has a Köppen climate classification of BWh and BWk desert.

History edit

The Parish is part of the traditional lands of the Wiljali people.[7]

The area was opened by Europeans due to the discovery of minerals in the 19th century.[8][9] There was a grazing property, known as Thackaringa Station, and the first discovery of silver ore in the area was made there in 1875, by Julius Nickel who was digging a well. In 1888, the population of Thackaringa was between 200 and 300 people.[10] Silver, lead, feldspar and beryl are still extracted in the area today.[11]

References edit

  1. ^ Michael Digby, 7 May 2015 Thackaringa.
  2. ^ Map of Thackaringa, NSW.
  3. ^ Thackaringa Project – Cobalt Blue Holdings.
  4. ^ Thackaringa (1st) Station.
  5. ^ Ron J Fitch (2006). Australian Railwayman: From Cadet Engineer to Railways Commissioner. Rosenberg Publishing. pp. 195–199. ISBN 1-877058-48-3.
  6. ^ Thackaringa District, Yancowinna Co., New South Wales, Australia. at minedat.org.
  7. ^ David R Horton (creator), © Aboriginal Studies Press, AIATSIS, and Auslig/Sinclair, Knight, Merz, 1996.
  8. ^ A miner and his family at Thackaringa in the late 1800s. Source: Broken... | Download Scientific Diagram, researchgate.net
  9. ^ Thackaringa Silver Mining – circa 1883, Thackaringa History – Cobalt Blue Holdings(Cobalt Blue Holdings).
  10. ^ "THE BARRIER SILVER FIELD – No.XIX – Thackaringa". Evening Journal (Adelaide, SA : 1869 – 1912). 17 February 1888. p. 4. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  11. ^ Plimer, I.R. and Blucher, I.D. (1979) Wolfeite and barbosalite from Thackaringa, Australia. Mineralogical Magazine 43, 505–507.