Nicholas Downs Manganese Mine (Balfour Downs), Balfour Downs Station, East Pilbara Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Nicholas Downs Manganese Mine (Balfour Downs)	Mine
Balfour Downs Station	- not defined -
East Pilbara Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

Located two kilometres north-east of the Balfour Downs homestead, at a substantial mesa, containing ferruginous manganese. The site is 130 kilometres north-east of Newman. Not the same location as the Mount Nicholas iron ore prospect on neighbouring Roy Hill Station.

The mesa is 1.5 kilometres long and 500 metres wide, bounded on all sides by steep breakaways, with caves along the northern edge used in times past by the local aboriginal tribe. The mesa is divided north to south by a deep normally dry water course.

D.F. Rhodes Pty Ltd conducted trenching and bulldozing at the deposit in 1957, but no mining.

The site consists of flat bedded manganiferous siltstone, underlain with seams of ferruginous or clayey material. In some places the bedded material is replaced with manganiferous laterite, in which are high grade manganese nodules, with similar nodules of limonite, in a soft earthy matrix. Detrital manganese surrounds the mesa.

The leases were held by Mineral Resources, but it was not until around 2008 that they entered a joint venture with Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting that mine development started. Up to this point it was known as the Balfour Downs prospect, but Hancock changed the name to Nicholas Downs. This was after James Nicholas, who owned Cobb and Co., and was an early pioneer in the Pilbara. Gina's father, Lang Hancock had married Hope Margaret Nicholas, daughter of James.

Elders of the local Nyiyaparli tribe were invited to the site as part of the required aboriginal heritage survey needed for any mine to be approved in Western Australia. The elders were under the impression the operation would be a small mechanical digger, employing six men. When informed of the industrial scale mining planned, involving the removal of the entire top two metres of the mesa, they became greatly agitated, as the mesa had cultural significance being part of a song line. The subsequent report recommended the mining of the surrounding detrital scree, but no mining of the mesa itself.

It is claimed the first manganese shipment left Port Hedland in December 2010, and shortly after the largest manganese shipment to leave an Australian port to that point. Whether the mining occurred on the mesa is unclear, as no mining evidence can be seen, and it is assumed the conditions placed on operations discouraged any development.

The announcement regarding the opening of the mine was met with a blaze of publicity, and then silence. Hancock quietly sold off its stake in Mineral Resources in 2013, and at some point before exploration ceased.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References