New Zealand - Arahura
- Arahura gold dredge
- Westland District, West Coast Region
- Jun 1958
- Whites Aviation Photo
Mining in New Zealand
- New Zealand has abundant resources of coal, silver, iron ore, limestone and gold. It ranked 22 in the world in terms of iron ore production and 29th in gold production.
- The total value of mineral production in New Zealand was $1.5 billion in 2006 (excluding oil and gas).
- The most important metallic minerals produced are gold (10.62 tonnes), silver (27.2 tonnes) and titanomagnetite ironsand (2.15 million tonnes).
- A 2008 report estimated that the unexploited resources of just seven core minerals (including gold, copper, iron and molybdenum) totalled around $140 billion in worth.
(Reference; Wikipedia)
Gold in New Zealand
- Prospectors discovered gold in the Coromandel Peninsula in 1852, sparking the Coromandel Gold Rush, the Otago Gold Rush and the West Coast Gold Rush in the 1860s.
- Initially alluvial gold was recovered, but then mining for gold in quartz veins which was recovered using stamper batteries took over.
- From the 1890s Otago rivers were dredged for gold, using New Zealand-developed floating dredges.
- Up to 2003 an estimated 998.71 tonnes of gold had been mined in New Zealand, a little under one percent all the gold mined worldwide. Available figures suggest that to that time a minimum of 312 tonnes had come from the Coromandel Peninsula, 274 tonnes from the West Coast, and 265 tonnes from Otago.
- Production peaked in 1866 at some 22.9 tonnes.
- Gold worth $250M in 2006 was produced from two large hard-rock mines (Martha Mine and Macraes Mine), several medium-sized alluvial operations, and a large number of small alluvial mines.
(Reference: Wikipedia)
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Image source: Arahura gold dredge, Arahura, Westland District, West Coast Region. Whites Aviation Ltd: Photographs. Ref: WA-46794. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/32055448
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/32055448