#ballarat #melbourne #victoria #gold #goldfields #australia #aussie #golden #goldentriangle #goldfield #creswick #daylesford #blackhill #miningcompany #mining #history #geology #geological #geologicalhistory #thegreatdividingrange #quartz #goldore #ore #minerals

Ballarat is one the richest alluvial goldfields to have ever been discovered on this planet. It made Australia famous overnight, along with the other incredibly rich goldfields that surrounded it, such as Castlemaine, also known as Forest Creek, and Bendigo. Along with the many other places few and far between. But Ballarat isn't really all that rich at all. It's just highly eroded. That's the crazy thing. The quartz here is notoriously low yielding, yet the alluvial fields are insanely rich. The reason? Ballarat is at the very top of the dividing range in this region, and as a result of this topographical elevation, it succumbs to a greater level of erosion than the surrounding areas. As the mountains here continue to grow, erosion takes place at a greater extent the higher these mountains get.

The result of this is the unbelievably rich alluvial goldfields that we witnessed in the 1850s when this place was first rushed. And many tens of thousands of ounces were eagerly plucked out of the ground here. But the hard rock side of Ballarat would take many, many more years, and an incredible amount of failures, before companies would begin to finally learn how to exploit the insanely low yielding quartz. The result of this was companies such as The Black Hill Quartz Company, which are responsible for the incredible visual features witnessed at Black Hill, in Ballarat today. This incredible open cut literally created entire ravines where there once lay solid rock! And the mine operated the enterprise in an incredibly smart and economical way, leading to 4 long decades of success before they were forced to close by the Government, who refused to renew their mining right.

So this is the story of how Ballarat... really isn't all the gold rich. It's just had way, way more erosion. And that's compensated for the low yielding quartz. If this wasn't the case, Ballarat would be far less spectacular, though it would've still had a rush occur here regardless. Because wherever there was gold to be found in either alluvial washes or auriferous quartz reefs, there was someone trying to make it pay.

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OzGeology is an Australian-based YouTube channel that specializes in creating high-quality documentaries on Earth sciences and natural disasters. The content is designed to be easy to digest and covers a wide range of topics, not only focusing on geology but occasionally exploring other scientific areas as well.

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