There's no question that mining has created a path to economic prosperity for our nation.
Since the early days of the gold rush, we've continued to strike it lucky on the land, and despite politically driven media hype declaring the resources boom over - the ships continue to leave our ports, full to the brim of ore and finished products.
Australia sends Iron Ore, Coal, Copper, Zinc, Alumina, Manganese, Lead, Gold, Uranium, Nickel, Bauxite, Silver and Mineral Sands to our international trading partners in return for huge amounts of money
There's no question that mining has created a path to economic prosperity for our nation.
Since the early days of the gold rush, we've continued to strike it lucky on the land, and despite politically driven media hype declaring the resources boom over - the ships continue to leave our ports, full to the brim of ore and finished products.
Australia sends Iron Ore, Coal, Copper, Zinc, Alumina, Manganese, Lead, Gold, Uranium, Nickel, Bauxite, Silver and Mineral Sands to our international trading partners in return for huge amounts of money.
Let's take a quick look at some of our best performing commodities.
Iron ore:
Australia is the world's largest exporter of Iron ore. In 2011, 488 million metric tonnes of iron ore was dug from under the soil (how much did you help dig up?). International demand for our red dirt peaks and troughs according to macro-economic trends but generally keeps growing. Recently we've seen mining giants such as Rio Tinto gear up for a $US3.2 Billion investment into the infrastructure and development of a new iron ore mine in the Pilbara.
Coal (black):
6.3 % of the world's coal output came from Australia in 2011. We continue to find coal and demand continues to rise. In addition, most of the coal that is known to exist in Australia is accessible. Probably the largest threat to the industry revolves around growing global social concern for the uses of coal.
Copper:
When you think of copper, Olympic Dam or Mount Isa usually spring to mind. These are two of the famous places where Australia's copper is mined and produced. As a nation, we rank third in terms of how much is beneath the earth and ranked fifth in terms of our overall output.
Nickel:
Australia is the world's largest known holder of Nickel. In terms of production, we sit behind Russia, Indonesia and the Philippines. The Chinese demand 40% of the world's available Nickel and it is mainly used for creating alloys such as stainless steel. With the amount of accessible Nickel we have here in Australia, we've still got another 95 years or so left of mining up our sleeve.
Gold:
The majority of Australia's known gold can be found in just four major deposits: Olympic Dam, Cadia East, Boddington and Telfer. As a precious metal, Gold is refined and produced in Australia at our only refinery: the Perth Mint. We hold approximately 17% of the world's known Gold under our soil - the largest EDR share next to South Africa.
View the entire list of mined Australian commodities and the finer details here.
How many of Australia's minerals you have worked with?
• Bauxite ✓
• Black Coal ✓
• Brown Coal
• Copper ✓
• Diamond
• Gold
• Iron Ore ✓
• Lithium
• Magnesite
• Manganese Ore
• Molybdenum
• Nickel ✓
• Niobium
• Phosphate
• Potash
• Rare Earths
• Shale Oil
• Tantalum
• Thorium
• Tin
• Tungsten
• Uranium
• Vanadium
• Zinc ✓
• Lead ✓
• Silver
Let us know in our forums:
References:
http://www.australianminesatlas.gov.au/aimr/index.html
https://www.ga.gov.au/products/servlet/controller?event=GEOCAT_DETAILS&catno=75326
http://www.thisisourstory.com.au/our-contribution.aspx