It's not all Iron Ore and Black Coal

[old man emu]

It's common knowledge that Australia has incredibly huge amounts of iron ore and coal that easily located. What has not been so well known in the past is the mind-boggling deposits of other minerals laying hidden under a relatively thin layer of otherwise useless rock. 

 

This video describes what is out there, and how geologists are using modern technologies and improved understanding of geological processes to locate what Society treasures.

 

 

[old man emu]

Here's one for the battery-power mob.

https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2023/08/31/mapping-australia-s-hidden-lithium-reserves.html

 

 

Map showing predicted lithium concentrations in upper sediment (TOS) 0–10 cm and lower sediment (BOS) 60–80 cm.

 

 

 

[facthunter]

Thank you velly much, Xi. 

[willedoo]

I worked on a rare earth exploration job in the Kimberleys in the 1980's. It was a hard job to do as the environmental destruction was total. On a small, steep conical shaped hill, we had to build 64 drill pads with enough room for a water truck to turn around on each of them plus the corresponding access tracks. With the spill from the pads cascading down to the next pads below them, not one speck of the original hill was left visible. It looked like one big quarry. To make matters worse it was right beside the old Hall's Creek road and plainly visible to the tourist traffic passing by. The only consolation was talking to the geologist. He said the tests had shown it to be viable to mine, in which case the whole hill would be gone and it would then go open cut below ground level. On completion of mining, all the overburden and non rare earth matter would fill the hole and the surface restored with topsoil and vegetation planting. The hill would be gone forever but at least the eyesore would eventually go away.

 

I remember when Bob Hawke as PM wanted to establish facilities to turn our raw rare earth into the finished product instead of exporting the low price ore to France and buying back the finished products at great cost. If my memory is correct, his idea was to set up facilities in South Australia. It was an admirable goal but failed due to the realities of market domination and control by existing world players.

Edited May 30 by willedoo