The mine and concentrating plant at Radium Hill in 1926. The plant was erected by the Radium and Rare Earths Treatment Co. over the old workings. An attempt was made to recover by-products, such as titanium white used in paint pigments, but the complex ore prevented economic extraction and operations ceased in 1931.
Southeasterly view of Radium Hill township in 1957. The mine lies about three kilometres behind the large water tank on the hill.
Official starting of the Radium Hill Mine ball-mill on 10 September 1954. After crushing, the ore passed into the ball-mill for fine grinding. Flotation processes were used to separate davidite, the main uranium mineral, from the gangue; davidite was extracted from the resultant slurry by disc filters which can be seen at top left. The ball-mill was operated above design capacity to cope with high ore production rates from the mine.
Miners drilling blast holes with a jackhammer in 1955. A carbide lamp hangs from the stope back.
An air-driven rocker shovel for mucking out ore in the larger stopes. The miner is wearing a battery-powered cap lamp, the most common present day form of personal underground lighting
Mucking out blasted ore with an ore truck on inclined rails; these were used to minimise removal of waste rock during mining of narrow lodes.
Ore being loaded into the railway wagons on a level in 1954. Broken rock was dropped down ore chutes from stopes above the level to this centralised loading station, one of many in the mine. A small diesel locomotive in the background hauled ore to the main shaft for hoisting by skips to the surface.
Headframe over the four hundred metre deep main shaft in 1954.
Aerial view of Radium Hill Mine in 1957. The main shaft is in the right foreground alongside the mill and concentrating plant. The large square structure in the left background is a tailings dump built up of waste material from the concentrating plant.
Compiled by J. F. Drexel, Dept. of Mines & Energy South Australia, Special Publication No. 3.
Page last updated - November 29, 1997.
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