#silver #brokenhill #newsouthwales #australia The Broken Hill deposit is one of the most extraordinary mineral accumulations on Earth, a testament to the immense geological forces that have shaped our planet over billions of years. Hidden beneath the arid plains of far western New South Wales, this world-renowned lead, zinc, and silver deposit has yielded vast amounts of metal, powering industries and economies for well over a century. But its true significance lies not just in its wealth but in the unparalleled geological story that led to its formation. This video takes you deep into the history of Broken Hill, uncovering how one of the richest metal deposits ever discovered came to be and why it remains such a unique geological phenomenon.
The origins of Broken Hill stretch back over 1.7 billion years to an ancient time when Earth's landmasses were unrecognizable, and much of the planet was covered in vast, shallow oceans. It was within one of these basins, part of what is now the Curnamona Province, that the first whispers of Broken Hill’s formation began. At the time, tectonic forces were pulling the continental crust apart, creating deep rift basins filled with seawater. Beneath the waves, volcanic activity was rampant, producing hydrothermal vents, or "black smokers," that exhaled metal-rich fluids into the ancient ocean. These fluids, carrying dissolved lead, zinc, and silver, interacted with seawater and began to precipitate, forming layers of metal sulfides on the seafloor in a process known as sedimentary exhalative (SEDEX) mineralization.
Over hundreds of thousands of years, these sulfide-rich layers accumulated on the seafloor, interbedded with silica, iron, and other sediments. At first, Broken Hill may have seemed no different from other SEDEX deposits around the world—massive, metal-rich sedimentary layers hidden beneath the seabed. But the forces that would act upon this ore body were unlike anything seen in most other Pb-Zn-Ag deposits. Instead of remaining a simple SEDEX deposit, Broken Hill was destined to be transformed by Earth’s tectonic power in ways that would make it one of the most structurally complex and mineralogically enriched deposits in history.
After its quiet accumulation beneath the ocean floor, Broken Hill’s ores lay buried for over 100 million years before the planet's crust shifted in a dramatic and violent reversal of forces. Around 1.6 billion years ago, the period of rifting gave way to intense compression as the early supercontinent Nuna underwent major tectonic rearrangements. The region that housed the Broken Hill deposit was caught in a vise of pressure and heat as continents collided and ancient crustal plates deformed. This marked the beginning of the Olarian Orogeny, a mountain-building event that would take the once-flat layers of sulfides and warp them into something entirely new.
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Studies Used To Construct This Video:
Minor element geochemistry of sulphide minerals in the Broken Hill Lode (N.S.W.) in relation to the origin of the ore:
A COMPARISON OF GEOCHEMICAL EXPLORATION TECHNIQUES: CURNAMONA PROVINCE:
Broken Hill-type lead-zinc deposits - an overview of their occurrence and geological setting:
A classification of Broken Hill-type deposits: A critical review:
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