Destination Profile - Roxby Downs, South Australia
Located 564km north of Adelaide (by road) and 90km NE of Pimba, the township of Roxby Downs was purpose built to accommodate workers of the Western Mining owned, Olympic Dam Mine. Now a thriving community of 4000 residents, Roxby Downs is home to a variety of modern, well equipped - educational, health, sporting, leisure, shopping and cultural facilities.
The Olympic Dam Mine is the largest mineral ore body of its kind in the world. With approximately 200km of underground roadway and fully remote underground trains, the mine currently produces more than nine million tonnes of ore annually.
The orebody was discovered in 1975 on the Roxby Downs Station north of Woomera. The successful drill site was near the property's dam which was built in 1956 during the Melbourne Games - so it was named Olympic Dam. There's currently 120 kilometres of underground tunnels attacking the load. The ore body can be described as like a fruit cake ... and mining for base metals is like trying to pick the fruit out and leave the cake there. It's a process they call "stoping" meaning drilling the ore out.
This is the fifth largest copper deposit in the world ... there's almost as much gold here as the golden mile in Western Australia and more silver than Broken hill. Once on the surface the ore is processed - it's unusual for a mine and process plant to be on the same location - making Roxby Downs the largest set up like this in Australia and perhaps the world! Copper is the primary product and the smelting process is spectacular. From this process gold and silver are separated. One and a half thousand tonnes of pure copper leaves Olympic Dam each week to be shipped around the world.
Also shipped overseas is uranium and silver ... and almost a by-product of the refining is a house brick sized gold bar that is produced every week worth about $350,000. Currently the mine earns the State about 250-million dollars a year and geologists believe they've just scratched the surface.
This destination is part of the Unseen Centre Australian Adventure.
Australian Tours
Other Tours and Info