Mining
World class mineral deposits of base and precious metals were found in western Tasmania. Major mines are at Mount Lyell, Rosebery, Zeehan, Que River, Henty and Savage River. Many are hosted in the Mount Read Volcanics. They are in the form of massive sulfides. The Mount Lyell mine extracts copper and gold. The Renison Bell mine was the largest primary tin producer in Australia. Mount Lyell gold and copper deposit was discovered in 1883, formerly the biggest copper mine, and operating till this day.
The Savage River ore body is in the Bowry Formation in the Arthur Metamorphic Complex. It consists of magnetite, pyrite, chalcopyrite and tiny amounts of sphalerite, ilmenite and rutile. The ore was formed under the sea in association with volcanism. The Savage River area also contains deposits of Magnesite in the form of marble.
At Beaconsfield, gold is mined from a quartz reef in a fault. The largest Tasmanian gold nugget was found at Rocky River in 1883, weighing 243 ounces.
An oil exploration boom happened in the 1920s with two companies making bold claims, but earning nothing from oil shale.
Asbestos was mined from the Cape Sorell and Serpentine Hill ultramafic complexes.
Read more about this topic: Geology Of Tasmania
Famous quotes containing the word mining:
“It’s a mining town in lotus land.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“In strict science, all persons underlie the same condition of an infinite remoteness. Shall we fear to cool our love by mining for the metaphysical foundation of this elysian temple? Shall I not be as real as the things I see? If I am, I shall not fear to know them for what they are.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“For every nineteenth-century middle-class family that protected its wife and child within the family circle, there was an Irish or a German girl scrubbing floors in that home, a Welsh boy mining coal to keep the home-baked goodies warm, a black girl doing the family laundry, a black mother and child picking cotton to be made into clothes for the family, and a Jewish or an Italian daughter in a sweatshop making “ladies” dresses or artificial flowers for the family to purchase.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)