The Indooroopilly Silver Mine is a historic

silver mine Silver mining is the extraction of silver by mining. Silver is a precious metal and holds high economic value. Because silver is often found in intimate combination with other metals, its extraction requires the use of complex technologies. In ...

Indooroopilly Indooroopilly ( , colloquially Indro ) is a riverside suburb south-west of the Brisbane CBD, Queensland, Australia. In the , Indooroopilly had a population of 13,622 people. Geography Indooroopilly is bounded to the south and south-east by ...

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

History

In 1918, G. Olsen and his neighbour, Patrick J. Madden discovered

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

traces on Mr Olsen's land at Finney's Hill, Indooroopilly, a suburb of Brisbane,

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, 10 km from the city centre. After some promising excavations all over the property approximately 200 feet above sea level, a mineral lease was granted to them and the first ore recovered from the site was dispatched to Cockle Creek, N.S.W. for

smelting Smelting is a process of applying heat and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to extract a desired base metal product. It is a form of extractive metallurgy that is used to obtain many metals such as iron-making, iron, copper extraction, copper ...

. The success of this led to the construction of an underground shaft to commence

open-cut mining Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique that extracts rock or minerals from the earth. Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially useful ore or ro ...

of the site in 1919. A number of leases were taken out on the property and adjacent land. A year later

geophysical prospecting Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and properties of Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. Geophysicists conduct investigations acros ...

was undertaken, the first record of such a survey being undertaken in Queensland. In 1921, a larger shaft was sunk to recover ore and a small treatment plant was erected in 1924 to facilitate work there. Mining continued with P.J. Madden purchasing the property outright. The existing house on the land, Fernbrook, built by architect, George Addison was demolished. By 1929, the mine ceased operations, due to poor metal prices worldwide and the exhaustion of the higher grade reserve. Total production for the period 1919-1929 had been 227, 343 oz of silver and 1,795 tonnes of lead.

University of Queensland experimental mine

Over the next two decades, the mine remained closed. Shafts and tunnels collapsed as timber rotted, and the land was susceptible to flooding from the

Brisbane River The Brisbane River (Turrbal language, Turrbal: ) is the longest river in South East Queensland, Australia. It flows through the city of Brisbane, before emptying into Moreton Bay on the Coral Sea. John Oxley, the first European to explore the ...

. The

University of Queensland The University of Queensland is a Public university, public research university located primarily in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Founded in 1909 by the Queensland parliament, UQ is one of the six sandstone ...

leased the site in 1951, totalling 6 hectares for its Department of Mining. The property was owned by

Brisbane City Council Brisbane City Council (BCC, also known as Council) is the local government of the City of Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. The largest local government in Australia by population, BCC's jurisdiction includes 2 ...

, who sold it to the Queensland government. In 1956, the state government provided to mine site to the University granting it permanent and exclusive surface and underground rights. The open-cut and underground workings resumed, offering the University an opportunity to manage it as a working mine and teaching facility. Three shafts exist – the main shaft sunk to a depth of 290 ft, a ventilation shaft sunk to 150 ft and an inclined shaft sunk 65 degrees horizontal to the mine's 140 ft level. This was established by students of the

Colombo Plan The Colombo Plan is a regional intergovernmental organization that began operations on 1 July 1951. The organization was conceived at an international conference, The Commonwealth Conference on Foreign Affairs held in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri ...

to gain experience. The mine is part of the

Julius Kruttschnitt Julius Kruttschnitt (July 30, 1854 – June 15, 1925) was an American railroad executive of German descent. Biography He was born on July 30, 1854, in New Orleans, Louisiana. He graduated from Washington and Lee University in 1873 and worked b ...

Mineral Research Centre.

References

{{Reflist Heritage of Brisbane Mining in Queensland