Story 18. Drilling on Island Lagoon.

Despite several discussions between CSR's management and Mt Gunson's Allen Turnbull the self taught site geologist about additional exploration of the ore body we were mining Allen was having considerable difficulty convincing CSR to do any exploration drilling.

In the late 1970's Allen knew the sulphide ore body we were mining was only a remote off shoot to a much larger ore body that lay somewhere close by along a fault line that ran roughly north south from Strathalbyn just south east of Adelaide to Burra continuing on and along the western side of Pernatty Lagoon and Mt Gunson where it continued northward.
Other parallel faults containing copper also ran though the Kadina, Moonta area. Alan could only raise a luke warm response from the bloody Sugar Miner as Allen called CSR's senior geologist who only agreed to do some basic infill drilling to explore the immediate area around the immediate Mt Gunson ore body.

The Mt Gunson ore body contained copper, zinc, lead, silver and cobalt which was a problem at the extraction process for both copper and cobalt were very similar, this was a bit of a problem of which we were penalized as it was considered a contaminate by the customer, what it didn't contain was gold, this along with other clues indicated it was just a minor part of a much larger, or as Allen called it, "the real ore body".

In the early 1980's CSR decided to allow some shallow exploratory drilling to the north west of the mine on the salt lake of Island Lagoon, along a 5km line between an iconic cone that gave Island Lagoon its name and the eastern shore.

ISLAND LAGOON Salt Lake sth of Woomera South Australia.

 

Rather than pleasing Allen the idea he knew was a waste of time and was absolutely bloody furious at CSR's bloody stupidity and argued with the senior bloody senior bloody Sugar Miner there was bloody nothing under bloody Island bloody Lagoon except bloody hematite which had been bloody test drilled back in the bloody 1950' and there are already bloody great mines in bloody Western Australia digging up bloody great lumps of the bloody stuff.

There were two problems drilling the lagoon, one was its inability to support heavy equipment, The so called dry salt lake was like most "dry" salt lakes in Australia are only dry for the first 10mm or so of the surface. Once the thin surface layer of the salt is broken, a thick, clingy, black to brown mud waited below to trap any one stupid enough to try to challenge it. To get a heavy air track drill 5km off shore would require careful planning along with a system to allow day to day servicing and refueling of the drilling equipment.

The second problem was the Island Lagoon area also contained an very sensitive and highly secure American Secret Satellite communication base on the North Eastern corner of the Lagoon.

Never the less to prove stupidity has no limit CSR persisted and after negotiations with the American base, Government agencies, Woomera security and a drilling company willing to risk loosing a drill or ancillary equipment beneath the pristine salt surface with little regard to the fact they would also be ruining a popular tourist photographic spot.

After months of preparations, a drill was delivered to the rocky eastern shore of the lagoon where it was broken down into three major components.

A Bell Jet Ranger  helicopter arrived and the first section of the drill was hooked on.
As we watched it take up the slack and prepared to lift it into the air the noise and the surroundings began to vibrate with a lot more energy than I had expected from the chopper even when lifting the heavy load.

I looked around to discover a much larger military Huey Chopper standing off close by watching the operation.
As the Bell lifted the load and moved off toward the Needle the Huey moved with it maintaining a position between the Bell and the Secret base, preventing any thought the Bell may have in making a dash toward the base.
As the Bell returned for the next section and for each additional flight the two choppers flew to and fro, in parallel, together.

Six months later the drill had slowly walked back to shore as it completed its drilling program along the way and proved the 1950's drilling and discovery Hematite was in abundance was bloody correct.

Bloody Sugar miners!