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BIG HILL GOLD PROJECT QUEENSLAND AUSTRALIA

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A PROLIFIC MINING PROVINCE: WARWICK TEXAS GOLD FIELDS

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HISTORY

Here’s hopin’, cover of the Queenslander, 16 August 1934. Collection of Geraldine Mate

The Queensland goldfields were much more remote than the Victorian goldfields of Ballarat and Bendigo, home to the well-known modern-day Fosterville Mine owned by Kirkland Gold.

In the mid-1850s, when Queensland was still part of New South Wales, the colonial government encouraged the search for gold on the northern frontier. It hoped that a discovery would attract European settlers from the south. Captain Maurice O’Connell, the leader of a government settlement at Gladstone, reported “very promising prospects of gold” in 1857. But it was a discovery made a year later that sparked the first Queensland gold rush. A prospector named Chapple found gold at Canoona, near Rockhampton, in 1858. By the end of the year, 15,000 hopeful miners had arrived.

The first major gold discovery in Queensland came almost a decade later. In 1867 James Nash discovered gold in the small agricultural town of Gympie, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) north of Brisbane. This was the start of the Gympie gold rush. Within months of Nash’s discovery, 25,000 people came to the area to try their luck. The influx of miners gave a much-needed boost to the struggling economy of the young colony.

Late 1871 an indigenous boy, Jupiter Mosman, found gold in a stream near what became Charters Towers. The town of Charters Towers was founded at the site, and miners flooded in. The population reached a peak of 30,000 during the gold rush of the 1870s and ’80s.

Farther north, a find along the Palmer River pulled miners to the frontier in the mid-1870s. Then, in 1882, Edwin and Thomas Morgan made one of Australia’s most important gold strikes at a site known as Ironstone Mountain, near Rockhampton. The brothers renamed the mountain Mount Morgan after themselves. Mount Morgan, the so-called “mountain of gold,” would become one of Queensland’s richest and longest surviving gold mines. Mt Morgan was operationa until the eraly 1980’s.

Known modern deposits in northeast Queensland include Kidston (5 Moz Au), Ravenswood/Mount Wright (5.8 Moz Au), Mount Leyshon (3.8 Moz Au), Red Dome/Mungana (3.2 Moz Au) and Mt Morgan (17 Moz Au and 239 Kt Cu). The deposits occur in a wide range of geological settings including porphyries, breccias, skarns and veins.

Warwick Texas Gold Fields

Gold was first discovered in the Warwick area in 1864.  An indigenous stockman found nuggets in a dry creek bed just below the site of the present-day Queenslander mine workings.  In the rush that followed the Queenslander Reef was quickly found, and work commenced on the first lode gold mine in the colony of Queensland.

The small alluvial field which led to the initial discovery was soon worked out and mining activity became concentrated on the rich quartz reefs of the Talgai Goldfield such as Queenslander, Big Hill and Monte Cristo Reefs.  Encouraged by these successes, further prospecting led to the development of the Sultan and Taylor, Australian and St Patrick mines.

Prospecting in the district continued in earnest until the end of the 19th Century, by which time 60 discoveries were made in the broader Warwick-Texas district.  There were additional discoveries in the adjacent goldfields of Canal Creek, Thanes Creek, Leyburn, Palgrave, Pikedale, Lucky Valley and MacDonald Goldfields.  From the late 1800’s   many miners moved onto new gold discoveries at Gympie, 170km north of Brisbane and activity within the Warwick-Texas district goldfields decreased.  In 1930, government assistance became available for mining operations in the Warwick-Texas district in the hope of providing worthwhile employment during the depression, however operations ceased by 1941.

Gympie Gold Fields 

The Gympie goldfields discovery was late in 1867 when James Nash discovered gold at Gympie

The very rich and productive area, which covered only an area of 120 square miles (310 km2), was officially declared the Gympie Goldfield in 1868. The mining shanty town which had quickly grown with tents, many small stores and liquor outlets, and was known as “Nashville”, was renamed Gympie after the Gympie Creek named from the indigenous name for a local stinging tree. Within months there were 25,000 people on the goldfield.

Mount Morgan

Mount Morgan Mine was a copper, gold and silver mine in Queensland, Australia. Mining began at Mount Morgan in 1882 and continued for almost 100 years until 1981. Over its lifespan, the mine yielded approximately 262 metric tons (258 long tons; 289 short tons) of gold, 37 metric tons (36 long tons; 41 short tons) of silver and 387,000 metric tons (381,000 long tons; 427,000 short tons) of copper. The mine was once the largest gold mine in the world.

From 1982 to 1990, Mount Morgan Limited began processing tailings of its previous operations at the Mount Morgan mine site. In parallel, Mount Morgan mine facilities were used to process materials from other Peko Wallsend operations. At the end of both such operations in 1990, the Queensland Government began negotiating with Mount Morgan Limited regarding terms of closure.

Wealth from the Mount Morgan mine funded Persian oil exploration, establishing the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which became BP in 1954. Wealth from the Mount Morgan mine was also bequeathed in 1912 to establish the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research.

Mount Morgan tailings are being considered for reprocessing yet again as the price of gold escalates making the tailings grade appealing.

Mount Isa

The Mt Isa is of the world’s most significant gold and base metal producing districts, host to many world class copper-gold and lead-zinc-silver ore bodies. The region is also prospective for gold, phosphate, cobalt, rare-earths, molybdenum and rhenium mineralisation and has a number of significant operating mines and new projects in development. There is well established mining, transport and processing infrastructure in close proximity to the regional centres of Mt Isa and Cloncurry.

It came into existence because of the vast mineral deposits found in the area. Mount Isa Mines (MIM) is one of the most productive single mines in world history, based on combined production of lead, silver, copper and zinc.

A lone prospector, John Campbell Miles, stumbled upon one of the world’s richest deposits of copper, silver and zinc during his 1923 expedition into the Northern Territory. When Miles inspected the yellow-black rocks in a nearby outcrop, they reminded him of the ore found in the Broken Hill mine that he had once worked at. Upon inspection these rocks were weighty and heavily mineralised. A sample sent away to the assayer in Cloncurry confirmed their value. Miles and four farmers staked out the first claims in the area. Taken with friend’s stories of the Mount Ida gold mines in Western Australia, Miles decided upon Mount Isa as the name for his new claim.

With an estimated urban population of 18,588 as of June 2018, Mount Isa continues to be the administrative, commercial and industrial centre for the state’s vast north-western region. Population has decreased moderately at an average annual rate of -2.66% year-on-year over the five years to 2018. Although situated in an arid area, the artificial Lake Moondarra 19 kilometres (12 mi) north of the city on the Leichhardt River provides both drinking water and an area for watersports, birdwatching and recreation.

Chillagoe  – Palmer River

In 1872 gold was discovered by James Mulligan on the Palmer River inland from Cooktown. This turned out to contain Queensland’s richest alluvial deposits. After the rush began in 1873 over 20,000 people made their way to the remote goldfield. This was one of the largest rushes experienced in Queensland. The rush lasted approximately 3 years and attracted a large number of Chinese. In 1877 over 18,000 of the residents were Chinese miners.

The population varied with the scale of mining and the peak year was probably 1917, with about 10,000 people, 13 hotels, two newspapers and a hospital.  During the 1930s and continuing until 1943, subsidised railway freight rates transported ore to the Chillagoe smelters, but lack of manpower during wartime and competition from Mount Isa forced their closure. Small amounts of mining for tin, molybdenum, wolfram and fluorspar continued, and Chillagoe marble continues to be quarried.