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MIM
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The
Mount Isa Mines
complex is a land of trundling yellow mine trucks, mountains of slag, intense activity and miles of noisy vibrating pipelines. Above all this the two chimneys trail Mount Isa's signature across the sky, marking the copper mine to the south and separate silver, lead and zinc deposits. Ore is mined almost 2km down by a workforce of twelve hundred; roughly crushed, and hoisted to the surface before undergoing a second crushing, grinding and washing in flotation tanks, to separate ore from waste rock. Zinc is sold as it is, copper is smelted into ingots and transported to Townsville for refining while four-tonne ingots of lead/silver mix are sent to England for the few ounces of silver to be separated. Power for the mines and the entire region comes from MIM's own plant; surplus is sold to the state grid.
The scale of the process will be brought home to you if you stand under one of the mountains of tailings awaiting future treatment - next to which are humble mounds of green copper ore, bought off a local miner and representing maybe a year's effort - or look down into the depths of the open-cut mine, worked simply for rubble to fill in old shafts. At the edge of the mine the last ridge of the original Mount Isa, and site of the first finds seventy years ago, has been left as a memorial Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Australia,
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