The historic Edie Creek mine is 5 km south-west of Wau and geologically similar, except that the main hosts are sediments of the Kaindi metamorphics. Gold occurs in fissure veins and veinlets within the Kaindi metamorphics and the Pliocene quartz-biotite porphyries (the Edie Porphyry), mainly in disrupted or shattered metamorphics adjacent to the porphyry stocks.
In 1926, Australian newspapers carried accounts of a major new gold discovery, with headlines such as “Phenomenal New Guinea Goldfield”, “Gold Madness Grips New Guinea” and “Gold Fever. New Guinea Infected”.
The inspiration for these stories was the discovery of gold at Edie Creek. The discovery was a rich one, with prospectors recovering as much as 20 ounces (560gms) to a dish – 100 times what was regarded as rich on other goldfields.
A former District Officer turned miner, Cecil Levien, was convinced that, however rich Edie Creek was, there was likely to be even more gold downstream. There the Bulolo river, into which Edie Creek drained, opened out from a narrow gorge into a valley, whose floor of alluvial gravel had been washed down over the ages.
Levien used the Edie Creek discovery to attract Australian investors and before long a new company, Guinea Gold NL, was established to test for gold in the Bulolo Valley. But the company was small and costs high, and in 1928 a Canadian mining company, Placer Development, took an option over Guinea Gold’s leases.
Edie creek is now operated by Niuminco Ltd (PNG), mining is done via satellite pits on the major vainlets that were already mined in the 1930's and 1940's through underground methods, Edie creek has been a active mining area from the earliest date recorded 1928 up until now 2018, which qualifies it to the oldest mine in the country (PNG) and if it dose qualify on a global scale may stand as the oldest mine still in operation, operating for 90 years. .
