Monday, May 18, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Rockhampton Beef Week 2009
As well as visting Mt Morgan on my long weekend i also checked out the Rockhampton Beef Week Expo and went to the first of three rodeos for the week. I like a good rodeo and this one in the beef capital of Australia certainly didnt dissapoint. It had all the events- bulls, bareback, saddle bronx, roping and tying, steer wresting, barrel racing and break away roping. It was a good night. Rockhampton holds beef week once every 3 years. As well as the rodeos there is property tours, cattle judging, demostration cooking, the beef ball and of course a bar and live music. Plus lots of other stuff!
Mt Morgan
On the mayday long weekend just gone I visited the historic mining town of Mt Morgan for the first time. The trip was somewhat spontaneous and so I didn’t have I camera with me which was a shame because I saw some very blog worthy photo ops. So I have just put some pics of the internet in. My mum came down to Rockhampton for a visit and so we decided to go to Mt Morgan for the Saturday seeing as it is only about 45 mins away and because they were having their annual Golden Mount Festival. There was a big street market and parade through the middle of town. After checking that out we jumped on a tour that went to the Old Mt Morgan Mine and also the fire clay caverns.
I have included some information of MT Morgan Mine which was taken from the Queensland Government dept of mines and energy.
‘Mining began at this site in 1882 to recover gold, but considerable quantities of silver and copper were also discovered. The Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Ltd controlled the mining leases between 1886 and 1927. The company went into liquidation in 1927 following a disastrous underground fire and deliberate flooding of the workings in 1925. The company was reformed as Mount Morgan Limited (MML) in 1928. MML began open cut mining in 1932 and by the time mining ceased in 1981 more than 145 megatonnes of ore and overburden had been handled. Between 1982 and 1990 a tailings re-treatment process operated whereby 30 megatonnes of final wastes were pumped into the flooded open cut.
During the 108-year life of the mine approximately 262 tonnes of gold, 37 tonnes of silver and 387,000 tonnes of copper were mined from Mount Morgan from underground and open cut operations. The mine closed in 1990 after the re-treatment of 28 megatonnes of tailings.
Following the cessation of mining and reprocessing around 1990, a period of rehabilitation commenced for parts of the mine site. In 1993 the state government accepted responsibilities to manage the historical environmental impacts of the mine site. Environmental impacts from the mine site primarily consist of severe acid rock drainage issues with associated high levels of dissolved heavy metals and salts. Acid rock drainage impacted seepage and runoff from the site contaminates both groundwater in the immediate vicinity of the site and the Dee River environment for significant distances downstream.’
Just over from the pit are the fire clay caverns, which is actually a part of the mountain that was mined for clay used in making firebrick of which many structures around the mine and town are made. The man made caverns contain dinosaur footprints in the ceiling and parts of skeletons of Plesiosaurus were found nearby. The dinosaur footprints were pretty cool and make you think about how long the earth has existed before us and how important it is that it continues after us. Ha-ha ok there’s my philosophical quota fulfilled for the day. The town of Mt Morgan itself was interesting with some many old buildings and every street name, mountain name river name, relating back to a family name in the towns mining heyday. Overall really fun interesting day, if you ever get the chance to check out Mt Morgan do it, especially if you are interested in mining.
I have included some information of MT Morgan Mine which was taken from the Queensland Government dept of mines and energy.
‘Mining began at this site in 1882 to recover gold, but considerable quantities of silver and copper were also discovered. The Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Ltd controlled the mining leases between 1886 and 1927. The company went into liquidation in 1927 following a disastrous underground fire and deliberate flooding of the workings in 1925. The company was reformed as Mount Morgan Limited (MML) in 1928. MML began open cut mining in 1932 and by the time mining ceased in 1981 more than 145 megatonnes of ore and overburden had been handled. Between 1982 and 1990 a tailings re-treatment process operated whereby 30 megatonnes of final wastes were pumped into the flooded open cut.
During the 108-year life of the mine approximately 262 tonnes of gold, 37 tonnes of silver and 387,000 tonnes of copper were mined from Mount Morgan from underground and open cut operations. The mine closed in 1990 after the re-treatment of 28 megatonnes of tailings.
Following the cessation of mining and reprocessing around 1990, a period of rehabilitation commenced for parts of the mine site. In 1993 the state government accepted responsibilities to manage the historical environmental impacts of the mine site. Environmental impacts from the mine site primarily consist of severe acid rock drainage issues with associated high levels of dissolved heavy metals and salts. Acid rock drainage impacted seepage and runoff from the site contaminates both groundwater in the immediate vicinity of the site and the Dee River environment for significant distances downstream.’
Just over from the pit are the fire clay caverns, which is actually a part of the mountain that was mined for clay used in making firebrick of which many structures around the mine and town are made. The man made caverns contain dinosaur footprints in the ceiling and parts of skeletons of Plesiosaurus were found nearby. The dinosaur footprints were pretty cool and make you think about how long the earth has existed before us and how important it is that it continues after us. Ha-ha ok there’s my philosophical quota fulfilled for the day. The town of Mt Morgan itself was interesting with some many old buildings and every street name, mountain name river name, relating back to a family name in the towns mining heyday. Overall really fun interesting day, if you ever get the chance to check out Mt Morgan do it, especially if you are interested in mining.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Update
Ok so just letting everyone know where i am at the moment. It is my second last day of vac work for Vale, then i am flying back to QLD. Uni starts again on Monday morning and i am looking forward to getting stuck into my last year. I have been in the process of researching opportunities for graduate work, and as soon as i get back i will be putting in my applications. Overall its going to be a big year for me. As well, on a different note, i have just booked in a 5 week holiday, where i will be going to Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Cuba and LA at the end of my last semester. This is a finishing uni present to myself, and once again is only possible due to vacation work. So get out there and apply for vac work!
Monday, February 16, 2009
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
Monday, January 19, 2009
Integra Coal-Vac Work
Well as my first post for 2009, I would like to say that I hope everyone had a great Chrissy and New Year. I did! Christmas was great lots of food and family and presents. New years was spent taking my mum out to dinner at a restaurant then my boyfriend and I bought in the new year whilst watching the beautiful girls perform! It was great. It is common for vac students to have this period off. I am working at a mine called Integra Coal formerly Camberwell Coal, in the Open Cut. I have been working on getting a Total Waste Management system happening on site, which means the company can make of the most of recycling scrap metals ect. I have also been working on writing a Rehabilitation Monitoring Plan. To date I haven’t really had a chance to work outside, I’ve really just been doing the above in the office. Hopefully I will get a chance to be outside (amongst the environment!) more in my last month, I am also hoping to go underground in that time as well. Although, I have been in a truck, for a couple of hours and I have also been able to watch some blasts go off. Both of these were firsts for me so it was great! I especially liked the chance to get out in the truck, because it gave me a chance to talk to some of the operators about what they do. Also despite the fact that I don’t have a car down here and we haven’t been provided with any transport, which is actually really difficult, in a country town, for lack of public transport, but anyway despite that, my boyfriend came down for a weekend and hired a car and we did a tour of the vineyards around here and did some wine tasting and also some cheese and chocolate tasting! This was great, it was a beautiful scenic drive and only about 20 mins out of singleton, this is something we don’t have around the mines in CQ, so I loved being able to do that on my weekend. So that’s really it for now. I will post again when I finish up out here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.JPG){kind=link}