Gold
-
Gold was first discovered in Western Australia in 1885 at Halls Creek. The first major gold finds on the Yilgarn block were made at Southern Cross in 1888. Bayley and Ford discovered the phenomenal riches at Coolgardie in 1892. In 1893, Western Australia's last and most significant gold rush began in Kalgoorlie.
-
Most of Western Australia's gold is mined from large open cut pits or extensive underground operations. Open cut mining is best suited to secondary gold deposits or primary gold near the surface where gold grades as low as two grams per tonne can be economically extracted. Underground mining is for ore bodies that extend below 300 metres from the surface and generally requires grades of at least four grams per tonne to be viable.
-
Gold is an excellent conductor of electricity and extremely ductile therefore is used extensively in microchips, electrical circuitry and nonsurgical probes. The high reflective properties of gold make it useful for heat protection on solar vehicles and for applications in the space program. Pure gold is very soft so to increase its tensile strength it is alloyed with other metals. Its rarity and inertness makes gold an obvious choice as jewellery and as a medium for coinage.
-
In 2007 gold production had a sales value of $4.1 billion.
To download a copy of the Gold fact sheet click here.
| Maps |
|---|
| Major Mineral and Petroleum Projects in Western Australia (530.84 KB .pdf) |
