Iron Blow

Iron Blow

Was the site of the earliest major mining venture at Mount Lyell on the west coast of Tasmania in 1883.It was above the location where Steve Karlson, Michael McDonough, and William McDonough were camped.

Original form

Geoffrey Blainey describes the appearance prior to its being mined:

They (Those mentioned above) examined the strange formation. It jutted twenty or thirty feet above the surface and was split by deep cracks and crevices as if a great explosion had fractured the rock and flung slabs far down the hill...(they)... had seen no similar outcrop in their brief mining experience. What lay beneath the ironstone crust?

[ Geoffrey Blainey, The Peaks of Lyell p.26 of Third edition 1967 ]

Mining

The first shot on the site was in January 1884 - and most local prospectors were camped in the Linda Valley to the east of the Mount Owen - Munt Lyell ridge as the townsite of Penghana the present site of Queenstown - to the west was still thick rainforest.

Following the establishment of the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company in 1893, the Iron Blow orebody was mined until 1929 [ The Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company Limited (1994) "A Century of Copper" Queenstown, Tasmania page 6,]

End of the era

The cessation of the Iron Blow mining was also linked in with the demise of the Mount Lyell pyritic smelting - the cessation of Robert Carl Sticht's smelters and methods, [ Geoffrey Blainey, The Peaks of Lyell, Third edition, Chapter 25 'The End of an Era',p.260 ]

The development of the West Lyell Open cut, and the later development of the Prince lyell orebodies removed all vesitages of the original workings

ee also

* Copper extraction techniques

References

Further reading

*
*: 2003 edition - Queenstown: Municipality of Queenstown. : 1949 edition - Hobart: Davies Brothers. OCLC|48825404; ASIN [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FMPZ80 B000FMPZ80] : 1924 edition - Queenstown: Mount Lyell Tourist Association. OCLC|35070001; ASIN [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0008BM4XC B0008BM4XC]

ee also

*West Coast Tasmania Mines