Much has been written about the current rush to find critical minerals in the Clarence Valley, and with demand rocketing, the state government is hoping to collect billions of dollars in royalties. As a result, exploration approvals are being fast-tracked with little regard for the resultant social upheaval or potential environmental destruction.
The Clarence Valley has a history of mining starting with the 1800s gold rushes, followed by the mining of copper, silver, cobalt, antimony and a host of other minerals which, by the 1950s, were mostly exhausted.
So, is there any as-yet-undiscovered mother lode waiting to be uncovered? Events over the past 50 years suggest not, and it’s significant that most of these modern-day explorers have focussed their activities on those earlier mine sites, producing glossy prospectuses, and hinting that modern technology will succeed where previous methods had failed.
The Dalmorton gold field is a classic example where, in 1980, 40 years after serious mining had ceased, the Little River Goldfields company spent almost a decade exploring, using aero magnetics, geochemistry, gradient array IP and magnetics.
In all, they drilled over 120 holes and then, clearly having found nothing, packed up and left, recently to be replaced by another explorer, Revolution Metals. However, following a flurry of announcements in 2017, including about the completion of deep ground-penetrating radar surveys, these announcements ceased and their website was shut down.
Dalmorton is not alone, White Rock Minerals’ partner company at Mt Carrington, Thomson Resources, split following exploratory drilling in 2022. Castillo Copper came, drilled for 3 years at Cangai, and also left. Corazon Mining’s Mt Gilmore operations have seemingly stalled, despite receiving state and federal government grants, and drilling to almost 800m without finding anything. Likewise, Anchor, after bouncing around and drilling on the Dorrigo Plateau for 11 years, has gone, only to be replaced by Trigg Minerals, bent on repeating the cycle once again.
As I see it, the government has nothing to lose, while Clarence Valley residents have everything to gain by having the catchment declared off-limits to mining.
- John Edwards
Published in the Voices for the Earth column in The Clarence Valley Independent 25 June, 2025.
