There’s A Huge Active Mine Under This Australian City

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#ballarat #goldmine #australia
Unearth the hidden world beneath one of Victoria’s most iconic regional cities in this in-depth documentary exploring the Ballarat Gold Mine — a fully operational underground gold mine that stretches beneath the streets, homes, and historic buildings of Ballarat. While life moves on above with bustling cafés, schools, and quiet suburban streets, a remarkable industrial operation is underway deep below the surface. This video takes you on a journey into the depths of the mine to discover how gold is still being extracted from quartz veins in one of Australia’s most historically significant goldfields.

Ballarat is no stranger to gold. Since the first major discoveries in 1851, the region has been synonymous with the Victorian gold rush, drawing tens of thousands of hopeful prospectors and shaping the very foundations of the city that exists today. What many people don’t realise is that this legacy didn’t end with the 19th century — it evolved. Today, Ballarat is home to a modern underground mining operation that picks up where the original miners left off, following the same auriferous quartz reefs that sparked a gold fever more than 170 years ago.

In this feature, we delve into the techniques used by today’s miners to access gold buried hundreds of metres underground. Using advanced drilling equipment and carefully timed explosive charges, miners work through incredibly hard rock to access the high-grade ore zones. These blasts are sometimes felt by residents above as faint rumbles or subtle tremors, a momentary reminder that a vast labyrinth of tunnels exists directly beneath their feet. The mine’s network spans several kilometres horizontally and reaches depths approaching 700 metres, with development underway to access even deeper levels.

We also explore how Ballarat’s unique geology contributes to its wet and waterlogged conditions. Perched on the crest of the Great Dividing Range, the city receives significantly more rainfall than surrounding towns like Bendigo and Maryborough. This high rainfall and fractured geology result in massive volumes of groundwater flowing into the mine each day — between 700,000 and 1.3 million litres. State-of-the-art pumping systems run continuously to manage this water inflow, echoing the challenges faced by 19th-century miners, who also battled flooding using early steam-powered pumps.

This documentary covers the mine’s modern history as well, from its revival in the mid-2000s when development began on the Woolshed Gully decline, to its current operations under Victory Minerals. We show how the new mine was established on top of historical workings, in some cases even breaking through into voids left by miners over a century ago.

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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.