Jean-Paul Turcaud

Jean-Paul Turcaud ( 1940–2020) was a French mining pioneer, and one of many claimants to the discovery of the Telfer Mine in Western Australia, for a time Australia's largest gold mine. The discovery of this prospect was attributed by Newmont Mining to David Tyrwhitt in 1972.

Early life Jean-Paul Turcaud arrived in Australia as a young immigrant from France in the late 1960s. He had served in the French Army as a Second Lieutenant in Algeria.

Counter claim The counter claim by Newmont Mining, the project was later spun off into Newcrest Mining, was that discovery of a mineral deposit does not, in and of itself, constitute recognition of that discovery. They argue that discovery of a prospect usually goes to those who physically peg the area and correctly identify the mineable minerals in the deposit.

Jean-Paul Turcaud, for various reasons and in contradiction to the Mining Act, failed to do either of these.

Turcaud operated an Internet website called, in reference to Telfer,