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Mines/Australia

Kambalda nickel mine

Kambalda nickel mine, Australia. Care and maintenance, underground, mining nickel.

Why Kambalda nickel is famous

Nickel sulphides were discovered in 1966 with production in 1967, launching the Western Australian nickel industry.1,2,3,4

Story cards

Timeline

  1. 1966Nickel sulphides found at Kambalda5

What kind of deposit

Magmatic nickel-copper-PGE sulphide

Kambalda nickel today

Where nickel is mined todayMining in Australia

Where next

Mines

Same kind of depositCopper Cliff Mine (Sudbury)Sudbury's ore was spotted in 1883. Kambalda's nickel sulphides were found in 1966.1Partner ofMount KeithBHP's Nickel West held both Kambalda and Mount Keith, now on care and maintenance.6Same kind of depositVoisey's BayNickel sulphide mines of two eras: Kambalda from 1967, Voisey's Bay from 2005.1ExamplesNova (Nova-Bollinger)Kambalda began Western Australia's nickel industry in 1967. Nova is another nickel mine there.1

Events

Led toNickel sulphides found at KambaldaRead what happened near Kambalda nickel: Nickel sulphides found at Kambalda.1

Places

Located inKambaldaKambalda nickel sits at Kambalda.1

Deposit types

An example ofMagmatic nickel-copper-PGE sulphideKambalda nickel belongs to the magmatic nickel-copper-pge sulphide family of deposits.7

Sources

  1. Kambalda nickel history State Library of Western Australia
  2. Wikidata entity Q3192342
  3. Kambalda Nickel Operations Wikidata
  4. Minerals Yearbook 2020-21, volume III: The Mineral Industry of Australia US Geological Survey
  5. Nickel (Mining and Energy Western Australia exhibition) State Library of Western Australia
  6. data/minerals/operations.csv Prospector Trails (internal)
  7. Mineral Deposit Models (Bulletin 1693, Cox and Singer, eds., 1986) US Geological Survey

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Pictures: Escondida Mine, Chile, NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (Public domain (NASA media, no copyright)).