1952
Rock shovel bucket
The nation’s prosperity
This rock shovel bucket was used at Mount Tom Price, 1500 kilometres north of Perth, attached to a hydraulic mining excavator. It is nearly 3 metres high and, being made of solid steel, weighs 15.2 tonnes. Iron ore deposits were discovered in the area in 1952. Mount Tom Price, owned by Rio Tinto, was the first major mine opened in the Pilbara. Today, buckets three times the capacity of this one are used at Tom Price.
The Hamersley Range contains 80 per cent of all identified iron ore reserves in Australia and is one of the world’s major iron ore provinces. Western Australia has 22 per cent of the world’s known iron ore deposits. The sheer size of the deposits is staggering: tens of million of tonnes of ore are being shipped out of ports almost as fast as they can be blasted out of the ground. The rapid growth rates that have been seen as Asian economies industrialise have created a once-in-a-century demand for resources like iron ore.
Francis Gregory, who travelled though the Pilbara in 1861, observed the obvious iron ore deposits in the red landscape. In 1876 William Rudell named the highest mountain in the Ophthalmia Range Mount Newman in honour of his fellow explorer Aubrey Woodward Newman, who died on a trek through the West Australian desert regions.
Harry Page Woodward, Western Australian government geologist from 1887 to 1895, had already noted: ‘This is essentially an iron country, for one cannot travel a mile in the parts where the older rocks appear at the surface, without encountering a lode.’ Woodward also noted that the absence of people for labour was the sticking point for the exploitation of these lands.
Lang Hancock’s family arrived in Western Australia aboard the Warrior in 1830 and established pastoral businesses in Roebourne, then Woodbrook Station and Mulga Downs Station. Hancock was always interested in prospecting, and the discovery of a large deposit of asbestos at Wittenoom led to his first big mining enterprise. From the start, he partnered with his schoolfriend Peter Wright. In 1952 they discovered massive iron ore deposits.
Fearing that the resource was scarce, the Australian government banned the export of iron ore in the 1930s. Without the prospect of overseas markets, the mountains of ore were worthless. Wright and Hancock worked on lifting the embargo before they could announce their discoveries. In 1956 Stan Hilditch realised that Mount Whaleback near Newman was a massive deposit of iron ore, and he too had to sit on the knowledge.
In 1960 the export ban was lifted and the floodgates opened. Hancock and Wright with Rio Tinto developed the Hope Downs iron ore lease. Rio Tinto had Tom Price, and BHP and Mount Newman Mining turned Mount Whaleback into the biggest single-pit open-cut iron ore mine in the world. The Mount Whaleback mine will eventually reach a depth of 350 metres below the current ground level. Today the area of Western Australia being mined for ore is the size of Peru.
In recent years miners such as Gina Rinehart, Clive Palmer and Andrew Forrest of the Fortescue Metals Group have taken a very active role in public life and a direct role in national politics. Mining will no doubt boost the national economy, but its effects will be even more far-reaching over the 21st century.