COPPERMINE CREEK 

A recent survey we conducted on one of the most historic locations of the old Gladstone mining District, Glassford Creek. The workings in this area began as early as 1875 and spanned until 1921, however the main mining production period is said to be between the years of 1893 and 1908.
The Glassford Creek workings were originally mined for Gold as the primary commodity. After the initial gold discoveries, further exploration of Glassford Creek for Copper was recorded as being poorly planned and extremely expensive. Despite a large-scale attempt to float the company overseas, the British Capitalists never agreed to fund the mining operations at Glassford. Confident the company would be floated, the Glassford Mine in Australia was spending large amounts of money on expanding the expensive exploration efforts. When the efforts to float the company completely failed, the mine was only kept open due to the Liberal mining laws in place at the time that protected Australian mining ventures. The scale of the operations at Glassford were reduced significantly after the failed floating abroad and the mine went on at a much smaller scale until closing in 1921.
Total tonnage for Glassford Creek production is hard to disseminate. We researched its average weekly production was smelting 100 tons of raw material weekly. This produced a yield of 45% matte (copper still containing iron sulphide) and this was converted on average to 70% crude copper. This would equate to a weekly crude copper production of 31 tons. The best output we can see on record for the Glassford Creek Copper Mine was in August in 1906 and were 71.5 tons CU, 170 ounces AU, 2013 ounces AG.
We hope you enjoy our exploration of the historic Glassford Creek area, sharing with you the Q.A.M combination of the story the old timers left behind mixed with a comprehensive current day explore of what is left of the copper mines.
As per our main page bio, QAM will not share any location information and strongly advises against entering any old mine workings. Stay out and stay alive
Ebenezer (QAM)