Radium Hill
Radium Hill minesite c.1954
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| Location | |
|---|---|
| Location | 460 km North East of Adelaide and 110 km South West of Broken Hill |
| State | South Australia |
| Country | Australia |
| Coordinates | 32°20′45.97″S 140°38′11.64″E / 32.3461028°S 140.6365667°ECoordinates: 32°20′45.97″S 140°38′11.64″E / 32.3461028°S 140.6365667°E |
| Production | |
| Products | Davidite, Carnotite, Uranium |
| History | |
| Opened | 1906 |
| Closed | 1961 |
| Owner | |
| Company | abandoned |
| Year of acquisition | first pegged 1906 |
Radium Hill is a former minesite in South Australia which operated from 1906 until 1961. It was Australia's first uranium mine, years before the country's next major mines at Rum Jungle in the Northern Territory (opened in 1950), and the Mary Kathleen mine in Queensland (1958). The associated settlement which once housed up to 1,100 people is now a ghost town, largely abandoned and demolished. The former townsite and cemetery were provisionally listed on the South Australian Heritage Register on 24 August 2016. During its main period of production between 1954 and 1961 the mine produced nearly 1 million tonnes of davidite-bearing ore to produce about 860 tons of U3O8.
The site was first pegged for mining in 1906 after prospector Arthur John Smith inadvertently discovered a radioactive material at a location approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) East South East of Olary. Smith mistook the dark coloured ore he found for tin oxide or wolfram (tungsten). His samples were sent to Adelaide University where young Sydney geologist and future Antarctic explorer, Douglas Mawson found the ore to contain radium and uranium. It also had traces of ilmenite, rutile, magnetite, hematite, pyrite, chalcopyrite intergrown with quartz and biotite, chromium, vanadium, and molybdenum.
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