Maddingley Mine near

Bacchus Marsh Bacchus Marsh (Wathawurrung: ''Pullerbopulloke'') is an urban centre and suburban locality in Victoria, Australia located approximately north west of the state capital Melbourne and west of Melton at a near equidistance to the major cities of ...

Railway Station, Victoria, Australia contains a concentration of a particular

brown coal Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible, sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35%, and is considered the lowest rank of coal due to its relatively low heat ...

( lignite) formation called Leonardite. A relatively high altitude formation, Maddingley brown coal is distinguished as having 60 per cent moisture content and a rich fulvic acid and

humic acid Humic substances (HS) are organic compounds that are important components of humus, the major organic fraction of soil, peat, and coal (and also a constituent of many upland streams, dystrophic lakes, and ocean water). For a long era in the 1 ...

content. A declared strategic State mining reserve, the estimated 400 million tonne deposit at Maddingley is the largest of three known deposits of high value Leonardite in the world, the others occurring in

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

History

The Maddingley brown coal deposit was surveyed by the 1930s. In the early 1940s brown coal was mined and transported in large quantities by rail from the nearby Rowsley Station, with dedicated trains running between Maddingley and the

Australian Paper Manufacturers Amcor plc is a global packaging company. It develops and produces flexible packaging, rigid containers, specialty cartons, closures and services for food, beverage, pharmaceutical, medical-device, home and personal-care, and other products. The ...

(

APM Siding The APM Siding was a long private railway siding in the suburb of Alphington, Melbourne, Australia, that served the Australian Paper Manufacturers paper mill (later becoming the Amcor Fibre Packaging, before being closed in 2012). The sidi ...

) at Fairfield,

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...

. The coal was used to fire boilers at the APM paper mill, with 400 tonnes (440 short tons) of coal per day transferred in two trains per day. This traffic continued until the late 1970s when the boilers were converted to natural gas firing.S Cauchi (November 1994). "Closure of the Australian Paper Ltd siding at Fairfield". Newsrail (Australian Railway Historical Society (Victorian Division)): pages 328–331 From the 1970s to the late 1980s coal from the mine was used to fuel local boilers at the CRA/Visy cardboard manufacturing facility located at JBD Business Park, located adjacent to Rowsley Station. The cardboard plant was decommissioned by 1990. The mine was subsequently acquired by the Calleja Group, a family owned waste management and transport company, primarily as an EPA licensed landfill for construction and demolition and, commercial and industrial waste . By 1994 the Calleja Group had acquired ownership of a methodology to create densified coal. The company invested in the application of Maddingley brown coal as a

soil conditioner A soil conditioner is a product which is added to soil to improve the soil’s physical qualities, usually its fertility (ability to provide nutrition for plants) and sometimes its mechanics. In general usage, the term "soil conditioner" is often ...

and natural fertiliser replacement for super phosphate, and the development of bench test equipment to produce batch samples of densified coal. Around 1997 the working technology to achieve densified coal became known as the Coldry Process.

References

External links

Victoria Australia Brown Coal FactsheetAustralian mines atlas
{{coord, 37, 42, 19, S, 144, 26, 22, E, type:landmark_region:AU, display=title Coal mines in Victoria (state) Bacchus Marsh Energy in Victoria (state)

History

See also

References

External links