Broken Hill, All That’s Left

This is Junction Mine, first pegged in 1884, it sits on the northern end of the original broken hill. The jagged black outcrop we’re standing on is the weathered surface expression or ‘gossan’ of the Broken Hill orebody. At the time of discovery, the gossan cropped out over a length of 2.5 km (1.5 miles) and formed the capping of the broken hill, which gave no hint of the fabulous wealth below.

The gossan contained a small amount of metal ore, but when the miners got to 30m (90ft) below the surface, rich silver deposits were found. In fact the worlds largest silver-lead-zinc deposit ever found, and billions of dollars worth of ore have since been extracted. (In todays $)

This spot is basically all that’s left of the original broken hill.