Phosphate mining on Christmas Island
| Phosphate mining on Christmas Island | |||
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| General information about the mine | |||
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| Mining technology | Open pit on 18 km² | ||
| Funding / year | 700,000 t | ||
| Information about the mining company | |||
| Operating company | 1899–1920: Christmas Island Phosphate Company 1920–1981: British Phosphate Commissioners (BPC) 1981–1985: Phosphate Mining Company of Christmas Island (PMCI) 1985–1987: Phosphate Mining Corporation of Christmas Island (PMCI) from 1990: Phosphate Resources Limited (PRL) |
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| Employees | 155 | ||
| Start of operation | 1899 | ||
| Funded raw materials | |||
| Degradation of | phosphate | ||
| phosphate | |||
| Dogs Head South Point North West Point MCI 70/1 MCI 70/10 |
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| Geographical location | |||
| Coordinates | 10 ° 26 '32.7 " S , 105 ° 39' 50.3" E | ||
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| Location | Christmas Island | ||
| Australian outer area | Christmas Island | ||
| Country | Christmas Island (Australia) | ||
The phosphate mining on Christmas Island is the main industry on the island, which belongs to Australia . The phosphate is extracted in the open pit .
geology
The Christmas Island is located in the Indian Ocean about 2,600 km from Perth removed some 350 km south of the western tip of Java . It is 135 km² in size and consists of a central plateau, slightly lowered in the middle, which is about 180 to 240 m above sea level and which slopes down to the coast on the edges in a sequence of steep slopes with terraces in between. Immediately above the coast there is a limestone cliff that is 3 to 45 m high. Only at Flying Fish Cove this is missing, so this is the only landing stage on the island. Christmas Island, like the Cocos Islands, is an exposed section of the otherwise below sea level mountain range, which rises to the south of the Java Trench 4500 m above the sea floor.
The Christmas Island consists of a core, which consists of a succession of volcanic rock , limestone and dolomite , and which is covered with lime from hard corals . On the terraces of the karstified coral limestone there are an average of 3 m thick, in some places up to 80 m thick, phosphate deposits that are at least 200,000 years old. As with guano, they are likely to have formed through the action of bird excrement on limestone.
The quality of the phosphate on Christmas Island ranges from high quality calcium phosphate (apatite) to inferior iron and aluminum phosphate ( crandallite and millisite). Depending on the amount of iron oxide and aluminum in the phosphate, the color varies from white to brown. The low-quality layers cover about half of the island, the high-quality layers cover only a fifth of the island and are mostly located under the low-quality deposits.
history
The commercial value of phosphate on Christmas Island was first established by oceanographer John Murray from a rock sample collected in 1887, which is why he urges Britain to annex the island, which happens on June 6, 1888. That same year, George Clunies-Ross , the Scottish owner of the Cocos Islands, sends his brother Andrew and a small group of Malaysian workers to Christmas Island to set up a settlement in Flying Fish Cove to forestall any other claim on the island's resources . In 1891 Great Britain offered its two competitors Murray and Clunies-Ross a joint phosphate mining concession valid for 99 years . In 1897 you are induced to found the Christmas Island Phosphate Company .
In 1898 the company's workforce arrived on the island. There are 200 Chinese workers, eight European managers, five Sikh police and a small number of Malays . Mining began in 1899 and the first large shipment of phosphate was shipped in 1900. In the next four years, 550 Chinese die of beriberi , which was caused by an inadequate diet without vitamin B 1 .
Phosphate mining was reduced during the First World War . A railway line opened in 1914, the Christmas Island Phosphate Railway , connected Flying Fish Cove with South Point and developed the phosphate deposits there. From 1920, mining was managed by the British Phosphate Commissioners (BPC). The BPC were a body made up of Australian, British and New Zealand representatives who, in addition to producing phosphate on Christmas Island, also operated mining on the islands of Nauru and Banaba Island .
During the Second World War, the island was occupied by Japan from 1942 to 1945 . The phosphate mining is temporarily suspended because the facilities are being sabotaged by the islanders and the phosphate freighters are being attacked by Allied submarines .
After the war, Australia and New Zealand bought the phosphate company in 1949 while Singapore took over administration of the island. After the Australian government paid Singapore £ 2.9 million in 1957 for lost income from phosphate mining, management of the island passed to Australia in 1958.
From 1965, large areas of rainforest were cleared, both between Dogs Head and South Point, but also on the central plateau up to Murray Hill and on to North West Point. In some cases, mining was resumed in existing pits, as fluctuations in raw material prices and new technologies sometimes made the use of the remaining phosphate worthwhile.
In the 1970s, the Union of Christmas Island Workers (UCIW) came into being, which fought to improve living and working conditions on the island and became an important force in the island's politics.
In 1980 a national park was established on the island, which now covers 65% of the island. During this time, the governments of Australia and New Zealand renegotiated the agreements to supply their countries with phosphate and as a result, the BPC handed over the management of phosphate mining to the Phosphate Mining Company of Christmas Island, founded in 1981 . This Australian government-owned limited company became the Phosphate Mining Company of Christmas Island (PMCI) in November 1985 . After it became clear that the mining could not be carried out according to the requirements of the government, the government decided in 1987 to stop the phosphate mining and to liquidate the authority.
After lobbying by the PMCI, the UCIW union and the Christmas Island community, mining was resumed in 1990 by the commercial enterprise Phosphate Resources Limited (PRL), in which many employees hold shares. PRL has invested significant capital in modernizing its technology. The fine particles produced by the stone crushers are collected by a dust extraction system and recycled. The mining license runs until 2034.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Christmas Island. Mining Link, accessed November 18, 2018 .
- ↑ a b c d e f A. JG Notholt, RP Sheldon, DF Davidson: Phosphate Deposits of the World . tape 2 : Phosphate Rock Resources . Cambridge University Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0-521-67333-4 , pp. 558 ff . ( books.google.com - excerpt).
- ↑ a b c d Christmas Island History. Christmas Island Tourism Association (British English).
- ↑ Christmas Island Colony. In: The British Empire. (English).
- ↑ Maslyn Williams, Barrie MacDonald: The Phosphateers.A history of the British Phosphate Commissioners and the Christmas Island Phosphate Commission . Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Victoria 1985, ISBN 0-522-84302-6 .
- ↑ Christmas Island Phosphates (Ed.): Environmental management plan 2012–2017 . 1 Introduction ( phosphateresources.com.au [PDF]).
- ^ A b Dennis Rumley, Vivian Louis Forbes, Christopher Griffin: Australia's Arc of Instability: The Political and Cultural Dynamics of Regional Security . Springer Science & Business Media, 2006, ISBN 978-1-4020-3826-6 , pp. 75-76 ( books.google.com ).
- ^ Australian Bureau of Statistics (ed.): Year Book Australia 1991 . Aust. Bureau of Statistics, 1985, pp. 762 ( [1] ).