My first trip with MIWATCH was to the abandoned fancy yellow diamond mine in Ellendale, based about an hour and a half’s drive from Derby in Western Australia.
Our objective was to collect samples from the two abandoned mine sites, E4 and E9. The sampling focused on waste rock, Lights stockpiles and tailings storage facilities across both sites to ensure a representative selection of the materials present in this specific mine waste. The goal was to characterise substantial amounts of rare earth elements (REE). The Ellendale site features clusters of olivine-rich lamproite intrusions, which resulted in the diamondiferous soil we were sampling.
One of the open pits at Ellendale
The work area itself is beautiful, with landscape and vegetation those who have not seen Australian outback can only dream of. Boabs the size of two-story buildings are prevalent in the area – as are the white ant mounts, some of which are over 2m high and proved a useful tool to discover how close the bottom of the tailings storage facility (TSF) depth was, as they would bring up soil and sand from below with which to make their nests. As we drove through the landscape, we saw many which had entire sections (Wings?) of their abodes which had different soil colours, as they obviously dug deep into the earth to make their homes.
The team on site
Dr Francesco Colombi led myself and Ali Yadollahi, another MIWATCH colleague, along with a team of four members from the Geological Survey of Western Australia – Erin Gray, Matthew De Paoli, Sandra Romano, and Tim Ivanic- and three local guys named Lenny, Jawan and Mannie (yes, like the one from Ice Age), on a 10 day expedition to site.
Brothers Lenny and Mannie working on the hole whilst GSWA colleague Sandra examined the samples.
As a new member to the team, it could not have been a more positive and welcome introduction to the world of sampling mine waste. Whilst the days were long, hot, and at times arduous, they were also spent laughing and working as a team, whilst not only doing sampling, but also gaining huge amounts of new knowledge from Francesco and the landscape which surrounded us.
During our 10-day trip, we successfully closed 10 holes across two tailings facilities, with the deepest being 9.4 meters, as well as sampling waste rock from 9 trenches. Our intention was to collect a wide range of samples from across the site from as many depths as physically possible, andSampling on siteas someone without a geology background, it was fascinating. The GSWA team were not only knowledgeable but very free with knowledge sharing, whether it be details about the weathered lamproites (prevalent in the area) with carbonate veins, or the finer details about how best to get good XRF readings when operating out in the field.
As someone additionally interested in the potentials of phytomining within remediation plans, I was also fortunate enough to have the opportunity to discuss the local plants and their capabilities with the site rehab managers and local knowledge holders.
An area of the Devonian Reef located near the site.During our expedition, we were fortunate enough to have the knowledge of Tara Read and Shayne Lowe from the WA Abandoned Mines Program, who pointed out Geoheritage Site 81 Mile Vent located nearby, where we could see the tops of a perfectly circular volcanic vents (which can be viewed on google earth!) and the nearby Devonian Reef, a 350 million year old reef where we were able to view fossils from the era.
All in all, the Ellendale fieldwork trip was a fantastic way to learn more about what, why and how we do what we do at MIWATCH – to characterise mine waste, with a view to improve our understand of closed mine site properties – whilst learning from a variety of incredibly knowledgeable colleagues.
Who said it was all work? MIWATCH and GSWA team on a sunset excursion!
