tarboat's photos with the keyword: moonta

This enginehouse was built by John Beaglehole in 1865. It housed a 60-inch Cornish beam pumping engine which operates until 1923. A balance bob was added in 1866 and flat rods were were connected to a pump in Talor's Shaft in 1868.

Disused Cornish boilers are scattered across the ground adjacent to Taylor's Shaft at the Moonta Copper Mines in South Australia. These vessels have been used for water storage after their steamraising days were over. Richman's 1869 enginehouse which housed a 32 inch Cornish beam engine driving crushing and concentration machinery stands in the background. The large tailings dump was reworked by leaching with seawater in the 1920s and 30s and the terraced effect dates from those times.

The wasteland in and around the waste tips at the Moonta cooper mines is a relic of the later years of operations on the site. Copper ore was mined at Moonta from 1862 until 1923, but copper metal was produced there for another twenty years after the mines closed. Copper was being extracted from the waste dumps by acid leaching from 1901 onward, and when mining ceased, the process continued for another generation. While the quantities of copper produced were never large, the process was capable of operating at virtually no cost, utilising principally seawater, by-product sulphuric acid and scrap metal, and consuming minimal labour and fuel. Best seen original size .

The Moonta mines in South Australia were operating from 1860 until 1923 and produced about 170,000 tons of copper metal. There are still extensive remains of the industry to be seen around the area and this includes a number of enginehouses. This example was completed in 1869 and housed a 32 inch Cornish beam engine driving crushing and concentration machinery. The engine ceased operation in 1917 and was replaced by a gas engine.