Economic Geology
The Yilgarn Craton is Australia's premier mineral province. It attracts more than half of Australia's minerals exploration expenditure, and produces two thirds of all gold and most of the nickel mined in Australia. The craton contains some 30% of the world's known gold reserves, about 20% of the world's nickel reserves, 80% of the world's tantalum reserves, considerable iron ore, copper, zinc and minor lead reserves. The craton contains significant platinum, vanadium, hard-rock titanium and considerable iron ore resources.
Mining is conducted mostly in the greenstone belts around mining centres such as Kalgoorlie, Kambalda, Norseman, Meekatharra and Wiluna, and minor centres such as Laverton, Leinster, Leonora and Southern Cross.
Ore concentrates or finished product are transported by rail or road to Perth, Fremantle, Esperance, Albany or Geraldton.
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“The great dialectic in our time is not, as anciently and by some still supposed, between capital and labor; it is between economic enterprise and the state.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)