Gold fever; Battle over $1 b gold mine in NZ

[Suezy]

Very very pleased I do not live in Waihi.  Put it on Google maps and it is a massive hole.  Knew that in the old days Waihi was a mining town - but it was nothing like this.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10789416

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[TokWW]

But it was much bigger in the past.  It used extend under the whole town you see today and was over twice as deep.

No gold production means no revenue - about $4 million a week.

 Waihi born and bred florist Kaczon would hate to see the town slip back to the pre-1987 days.

 "There were plenty of empty shops. Waihi was a ghost town before they re-opened the pit."

The town "lives/exists" only because of the gold mining.

Most people are in favour of the mining continuing with good reason.

Seven vertical shafts had been sunk for the underground Martha Mine; the deepest was 600 metres from the surface. Radiating from the shafts was a network of 175 kilometres of tunnels on 15 horizontal levels. A workforce averaging 600 men was employed over the 70 year life span of the mine. In 1909, when gold production peaked, a total of 1500 people were employed in the mine and at the Victoria Battery.

The current mine is a 250m deep open cast inverted cone, not visible from the town directly.  The new mine will dig into the old tunnels 350m from the surface only on the east side of town, the least populated,  and at just over half of the depth of the original mine...

The capital spend to bore 13.5km of truck-size tunnels is estimated at at least $200 million in addition to the $190 million a year the company says it spends on goods, services, rates, taxes and royalties. About a third of that is spent within 30km of Waihi, a town of about 4500.

They also close-up any new diggings of tunnels and drives with hard rock backfill.  One shop owner said:

"A lot of the problem here is that people aren't moving with the times. When the open pit was first mined (in 1987) the old shop used to bang and rattle a bit a couple of times a day but they are so deep now you don't feel a thing."

[Suezy]

Thanks Graeme - didn't know that but it looked just so massive on the Google maps and hadnt seen it before. I was really surprised as it is gigantic.  Just couldn't imagine it being 500 feet deep and how long ago was that do you know?

[TokWW]

Some facts and figures, its not all in one place though   (well I just found these all one place LOL!)

The end of the original Martha Mining did not end in 1952 because the Martha had run out of gold; the current operation is evidence of this. Rather, a series of factors led to a decline in production:

The international gold price was fixed at $US35 an ounce, limiting the revenue the mine could make.

The machinery needed to be updated, although the technology was available to do this, the money was not.

There had been two World Wars and the Depression of the 1930s, depleting manpower and creating a difficult economic climate.

It was not possible, given these factors to profitably mine the lower grade ore.

From 1882 to 1954 the Waihi area produced a total of £31,403,981 worth of gold. At the Martha Mine, 11,932,000 tonnes of ore was mined, yielding 174 tonnes of gold and 1,193 tonnes of silver. This production of 5.6 million oz of gold and 38.4 million oz of silver, at today's bullion prices (April 2000) of NZ$550 per oz for gold and NZ$10 per oz for silver, would give a value of $NZ 3,108,000,000 for gold and $NZ384,000,000 for silver.

http://www.waihi.org.nz/about-us/history-and-heritage/waihi-and-gold/the-end-of-the-original-martha-mine/

The First Waihi Gold Mining Company

In 1890 the Martha Company and other claims were bought by the Waihi Gold Mining Company of London, who invested a great deal of capital into the mine.

At the time, trials were being carried out to find a more efficient way to extract precious metals from the quartz rock. By 1894, the Forrest / MacArthur process had been developed and the use of cyanide in the gold extraction process was adopted world wide. This process enabled a higher percentage of gold and silver to be extracted from hard rock, making viable many operations that would otherwise have had to close.

The Martha Mine became one of the most important gold and silver mines in the world.

By 1952, when the mighty Martha Mine closed, around 5.6 million ounces (174,160kg) of gold and 38.4 million ounces (1,193,180kg) of silver had been produced from 11,932,000 tonnes of ore.

Seven vertical shafts had been sunk for the underground Martha Mine; the deepest was 600 metres from the surface. Radiating from the shafts was a network of 175 kilometres of tunnels on 15 horizontal levels. A work force averaging 600 men was employed over the seventy year lifespan of the mine. In 1909, when gold production peaked, a total of 1500 people were employed in the mine and at the Victoria Battery.

Groundwater was pumped out of the workings to enable the miners to work in the tunnels. From 1904 to 1913 the dewatering pumps were powered by steam engines that were housed in the Cornish Pumphouse, a landmark that still stands beside the Martha Mine today.

Electricity was introduced in 1913. The first hydro electric powerstation on the Waikato River was built by the Waihi Gold Mining Company at Horahora. This power station was later flooded when Lake Karapiro was formed. Around 7000 litres per minute of tepid water was pumped from underground. It flowed through the deep gutters lining SeddonStreet to the Ohinemuri River and also filled Waihi's public swimming pool.

http://www.waihi.org.nz/about-us/history-and-heritage/waihi-and-gold/the-first-waihi-gold-mining-company/

Actually I only just found these details this time around, had been on the site but not this tab "About us"

An interesting site for more info:

http://www.showcaves.com/english/nz/mines/Martha.html

Searches:
http://www.google.co.nz/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=martha+mine&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&channel=suggest

http://www.google.co.nz/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=martha+mine&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&channel=suggest#hl=en&client=opera&hs=JOn&rls=en&channel=suggest&q=martha+mine+history&revid=1694718199&sa=X&ei=Z_NRT-nYPI2RiQek6JTCCw&ved=0CDMQ1QIoAA&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=ceaf0d52bbdd67d3&biw=1333&bih=573

Cheers

Graeme

[Suezy]

Thanks you once again Graeme for the great information above - very very interesting indeed - too much to read tonight but will do so in the morning.  I have certainly learned a lot about Martha Mine - had heard of it but no known much about it.  Thanks a million.