Savage River, Tasmania
Encyclopedia
Savage River is a small Australia
n mining township located on the West Coast
of Tasmania
.
). The township at Savage River was constructed from 1965 to 1967 when Roy Hudson's Industrial and Mining Investigations Pty Ltd received backing to construct a mining project in the area.
iron ore mine operated by Grange Resources. Production at the mine in 2006–07 was 1.423 million cubic metres of ore with 4.851 million cubic metres of waste
. At June 2007, 50.9% of the 323.8 million tonnes of resources from the mine was recoverable magnetite
.. The iron ore is piped as slurry
north to the coast at Port Latta for on-shipment.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n mining township located on the West Coast
West Coast, Tasmania
The West Coast of Tasmania is the part of the state that is strongly associated with wilderness, mining and tourism, rough country and isolation...
of Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
.
History
Government surveyor Charles Sprent discovered Savage River's iron ore deposits in 1877, however the minerals were left untouched for nearly a century due to the difficulty in extracting iron from the low-quality ore. Several surveys were conducted in the interim including one in 1926 by Australian Iron and Steel (later BHPBHP Billiton
BHP Billiton is a global mining, oil and gas company headquartered in Melbourne, Australia and with a major management office in London, United Kingdom...
). The township at Savage River was constructed from 1965 to 1967 when Roy Hudson's Industrial and Mining Investigations Pty Ltd received backing to construct a mining project in the area.
Mining operations
The Savage River Mine is an open-cutOpen-pit mining
Open-pit mining or opencast mining refers to a method of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow....
iron ore mine operated by Grange Resources. Production at the mine in 2006–07 was 1.423 million cubic metres of ore with 4.851 million cubic metres of waste
Tailings
Tailings, also called mine dumps, slimes, tails, leach residue, or slickens, are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction of an ore...
. At June 2007, 50.9% of the 323.8 million tonnes of resources from the mine was recoverable magnetite
Magnetite
Magnetite is a ferrimagnetic mineral with chemical formula Fe3O4, one of several iron oxides and a member of the spinel group. The chemical IUPAC name is iron oxide and the common chemical name is ferrous-ferric oxide. The formula for magnetite may also be written as FeO·Fe2O3, which is one part...
.. The iron ore is piped as slurry
Slurry pipeline
A slurry pipeline is used in mining to transport mineral concentrate from a mineral processing plant near a mine.- Overview :The concentrate of the ore is mixed with water and then pumped over a long distance to a port where it can be shipped for further processing. At the end of the pipeline, the...
north to the coast at Port Latta for on-shipment.