Reconstruction of Historical Riverine Sediment Production on The

Anthropocene 21 (2018) 1–15

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Anthropocene

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ancene

Reconstruction of historical riverine sediment production on the

goldﬁelds of Victoria, Australia

a, a b c c

Peter Davies *, Susan Lawrence , Jodi Turnbull , Ian Rutherfurd , James Grove ,

d e f

Ewen Silvester , Darren Baldwin , Mark Macklin

Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, 3086, Australia

Ochre Imprints, 331 Johnston Street, Abbotsford, Victoria, 3067, Australia

School of Geography, Faculty of Science, University of Melbourne, 22 Bouverie Street, Melbourne, Victoria, 3001, Australia

Department of Ecology, Environment and Evolution, School of Life Sciences, College of Science, Health and Engineering, La Trobe University, Wodonga,

Victoria, Australia

School of Environmental Sciences, Charles Sturt University, Thurgoon, NSW, 2640, Australia

School of Geography & Lincoln Centre for Water and Planetary Health, College of Science, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, Lincolnshire LN6 7TS, United

Kingdom

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history:

ﬁ ﬁ

Received 20 July 2017 A signi cant but previously unquanti ed factor in anthropogenic change in Australian rivers was the release

Received in revised form 20 November 2017 of large volumes of sediment produced by gold mining in the 19th century. This material, known historically

Accepted 22 November 2017

as ‘sludge’, rapidly entered waterways adjacent to mining areas and caused major environmental damage.

Available online 1 December 2017

We interrogate detailed historical records from the colony of Victoria spanning the period 1859 to 1891 to

reconstruct the temporal and spatial distribution of sediment volumes released by mining activity. Based on

Keywords: 3

these records, we estimate that at least 650 million m of material was released into rivers in the 19th

Sediment

century, exceeding natural sedimentyield to rivers byan average 140 times.Althoughthe sedimentyieldper

Sludge

river is not high when compared with examples around the world, the widespread impacts of sludge

Gold mining

distinguishes the case of Victoria. The sludge affected three-quarters of catchments in the state due to the

Alluvium

Waterways large number of small mining operations spread over hundreds of creeks and gullies across the colony. The

ﬁ

Australia impacts of sludge to rivers and farmland lled newspapers for more than 50 years and generated numerous

parliamentary inquiries. Today, the impacts are largely forgotten and unrecognised, as are the continuing

impacts on aquatic systems. The estimates generated in this study provide a basis for understanding the

continuing impact of historical mining on Victorian rivers.

1. Introduction have been used to extend the water quality record to the period

before routine measurements and back to ﬁrst European settle-

There has been a strong trend to move from general ment. Detailed knowledge of changes wrought by humans is of

descriptions of human impacts on landscapes to interdisciplinary, great assistance, not only in understanding our landscapes but also

quantitative reconstructions (Gillson and Willis, 2004). These in deﬁning targets for management and restoration.

detailed reconstructions can be regional (Butzer and Helgren, Forensic analysis of historical records is a major source of

2005) or thematic (Bradshaw, 2012). In Australia there are good quantitative information about the period between ﬁrst European

examples of thematic quantitative reconstructions of vegetation colonisation and routine environmental monitoring. One spectac-

and land use change since ﬁrst European settlement (Bowman, ular period of human impact in Australia was gold mining in the

2001; Lunt, 2002). Indicators such as diatoms (Reid et al., 1995) 19th century. In this paper we interrogate the remarkably detailed

historical records of this period to reconstruct the temporal and

spatial distribution of sediment released by historical gold mining.

* Corresponding author. We also consider how the sediment was dispersed by river systems

E-mail addresses: [email protected] (P. Davies),

in the then colony (now state) of Victoria. While there have been

[email protected] (S. Lawrence), [email protected] (J. Turnbull),

reconstructions of mining sediment in speciﬁc rivers (Knighton,

[email protected] (I. Rutherfurd), [email protected] (J. Grove),

1989; Locher, 1996; Boggs et al., 2000) this is the ﬁrst regional

[email protected] (E. Silvester), [email protected]

(D. Baldwin), [email protected] (M. Macklin). reconstruction of legacy sediments from mining in Australia. The

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ancene.2017.11.005

2 P. Davies et al. / Anthropocene 21 (2018) 1–15

same is true of the international literature. While there are regions. In this paper we are not producing a full sediment budget,

numerous studies describing sediment sources and sinks for single as we do not consider storage and end of valley delivery of

mines, or single rivers (e.g. Hettler et al., 1997; Pickup et al., 1981), sediment. Instead we estimate the volume of sediment delivered to

this study joins a small group of papers describing regional-scale streams by historical gold mining. Neither are we considering the

mining effects (Clement et al., 2017; Hudson-Edwards et al., 1999; chemical contaminants associated with the sediments. Future

James, 1999; Knighton, 1989). research will report full mining sediment budgets for Victorian

Gold mining mobilised large quantities of sediment and sludge catchments (including comparisons with other sources of anthro-

in 19th-century Victoria, much of which ﬂowed into and polluted pogenic sediment such as gullying and agriculture), as well as

local river systems (Lawrence and Davies, 2014). For more than half levels of contamination. While there is some knowledge of

a century, miners diverted great volumes of water to separate gold mercury use in Victoria based on historical records (Davies

from alluvial washdirt and produced huge amounts of mining et al., 2015) and localised catchment studies (e.g. Bycroft et al.,

waste in the process. In addition, smaller but signiﬁcant volumes of 1982; Churchill et al., 2004; McCredie, 1982) its relationship with

tailings resulted from the crushing of auriferous ore in stamp sediment distribution and its impact regionally are yet to be

batteries. The semi-liquid waste from these processes was known determined. The scope of the present study is deliberately limited

generally as ‘sludge’ and ranged in composition from ﬁne silty- to 19th-century mining as this period experienced the greatest

clays to coarse sands and gravels. Numerous contemporary gold-mining activity, production and environmental impact. While

accounts and government inquiries reported sediments that ﬁlled there are many contemporary examples of uncontrolled sediment

creeks and water holes and inundated farmland for tens of release in developing countries (e.g. Appleton et al., 2001; Day

kilometres downstream (e.g. Royal Commission, 1859; Board, et al., 2009; Donkor et al., 2005), we are concerned here with a

1887; Committee, 1887). These historical sources indicate that setting where we can observe more than a century of changes

disruption to river systems was signiﬁcant and widespread. Mining following a relatively short period of intense mining.

activity was widely distributed across Victoria, extending from the Our primary data in this paper relate to the years 1859–1891,

north-eastern border with New South Wales to within 150 kilo- which overlap all but the ﬁrst eight years of the main gold rush

metres of the border with South Australia in the west. It was period. We begin by reviewing the history and geology of Victoria's

concentrated in the uplands along the continental divide that gold province and the development of mining techniques used to

provide the primary source of Victoria's main rivers, so the rivers recover gold from primary (quartz ore) and secondary (placer or

carried mining waste both north and south across Victoria. alluvial) deposits. Drawing on records published in the Mining

In this paper we use historical research to estimate the volumes Department's annual series Mineral Statistics of Victoria (MSV), we

of mining sediment produced, based on the detailed analysis of calculate sediment volumes for the main alluvial mining technol-

19th-century documentary records. This research is part of an on- ogies, including puddlers, compound cradles, ground and box

going multi-disciplinary project to assess the scale and lasting sluicing, and hydraulic sluicing. These data are arranged by the

impact of historical mining sediment across the state of Victoria. seven Mining Districts of Victoria: Ballarat, Beechworth, Sandhurst

The goal is to determine the ongoing implications for stream health [Bendigo], Maryborough, Castlemaine, Ararat and (from 1867)

and land use today. In subsequent research these historical ﬁgures Gippsland (Fig. 1). We also use MSV data to determine volumes of

will be integrated with geomorphological analysis to derive the quartz ore processed in stamp batteries and track gold yields and

production of mining sediment that can be compared with other mining populations against the volumes of alluvium processed.

Fig. 1. Map of Victoria showing boundaries of Mining Districts and principal mining centres.

P. Davies et al. / Anthropocene 21 (2018) 1–15 3

MSV data are mapped by Mining District and major river Creswick, Maryborough and Rushworth (Phillips and Hughes,

catchment to indicate the geographic distribution of sediment 1996; Phillips et al., 2003)).

production across the colony. We then examine contemporary Gold deposits in Victoria are frequently located in the

documentary sources to explore the effects of mining sludge on interﬂuves between the larger north-ﬂowing rivers. This meant

downstream communities and ofﬁcial responses to the problem. that securing adequate water supplies for mining and domestic

These ﬁgures will allow the quantity of alluvial mining sediments purposes was often difﬁcult. Miners quickly adapted to the low and

mobilised in Victoria to be compared with other anthropogenic variable runoff conditions by constructing extensive networks of

sources of erosion in future work and for their management artiﬁcial channels (known as races) and dams. By 1869 there were

implications to be assessed. some 3900 km of races in operation, along with hundreds of

reservoirs to store water for processing auriferous washdirt

2. Historical context (Smyth, 1980, p. 547).

Payable quantities of gold were ﬁrst discovered in Victoria in 3. Mining technology

1851, only three years after similar ﬁnds were made in California

and 16 years after the ﬁrst permanent European settlement of the The kind of sediment produced is closely related to the type of

colony. Hundreds of thousands of migrants arrived in Victoria from technology used and the nature of the deposit being worked.

around the world, increasing the colony's population from 77,000 Miners adopted a range of techniques to recover gold in response

in 1851 to 540,000 just ten years later (Serle, 1968, p.382). By the to the deposits they encountered, with technologies progressing

time the gold rush had dwindled around the period of the First through distinct stages. Each method required large volumes of

World War, the Victorian gold province had produced 80 million water to separate gold from the surrounding matrix and all

troy ounces of gold, approximately 2570 t or around 2% of all the produced some form of sludge. The gold rush began with the

gold ever mined globally. The 1500 t or more of alluvial gold from treatment of shallow alluvial sands and gravels using primitive

Victoria ranks the region as one of the world's most important equipment such as pans and cradles (Fig. 2). By the mid–1850 s

shallow alluvial goldﬁelds, along with Siberia, California, the miners had introduced more efﬁcient ways of washing shallow

Yukon/Klondike and Otago, New Zealand (Phillips et al., 2003, pp. deposits using ground sluices and puddling machines (Davey,

377–380, 414). 1996; Smyth, 1980). Ground sluices channelled water through a

Gold mining also had a dramatic impact on the natural series of races or ditches and over a bank into a creek or gully to

environment. Miners dug up and polluted hundreds of creeks and loosen the overburden and washdirt, which was directed into a

gulliesin their relentless searchfor gold. They divertedhuge volumes sluice-box or tail-race to retrieve the gold (Fig. 3). Ground sluices,

of water to sluice their claims and ﬂushed the resulting sludge into long toms and sluice boxes have been aggregated in the published

the nearest waterway. Much of this material ﬂowed downstream to historical sources because each operated on similar principles of

inundate and damage productive farmland (Peterson, 1996). processing washdirt with running water through a channel lined

Signiﬁcant volumes of mercury used in gold amalgamation were with apparatus to catch the gold particles.

washed into creeks and rivers (Davies et al., 2015). Miners also had a Puddling machines were ring-shaped troughs in the ground in

voracious appetite for timber and ﬁrewood, decimating forests and which clays and gravels were mixed with water (Fig. 4). Paddles or

woodlands inthe vicinityof the goldﬁelds(Howitt,1972,p.254; Ligar harrows suspended from a rotating central arm were then dragged

etal.,1865,p.4; Smyth,1980,p.28).Thiswaspartof thewiderpattern

of broad-scale land clearance for agriculture during and after this

period. The scale and impact of deforestation by mining on erosion

and sediment yields, however, remains poorly understood (Dodson

and Mooney, 2002; Lunt, 2002).

The geographic distribution of mining centres reﬂects the

geological emplacement of gold-bearing strata. Primary or hard

rock deposits of gold in quartz veins were formed in the Palaeozoic

Era, ending with the Devonian Period around 350 million years ago.

Existing basalts and the overlying sedimentary rocks were

fractured during an intense period of volcanism and mountain

building which allowed mineral-enriched water to ﬂow into the

cracks and precipitate-out to form gold-bearing quartz veins. Later,

during the Cainozoic Era beginning some 65 million years ago,

weathering and erosion liberated some of the gold and redeposited

it in valleys and stream beds (Phillips et al., 2003, pp. 381–383).

Some of these alluvial deposits were themselves subsequently re-

buried by later deposition and by volcanic activity that began

around 3 million years ago, forming ‘deep lead’ gold deposits

(Hughes and Phillips, 2001). Palaeozoic outcrops in Victoria form

the southern end of the Lachlan Fold Belt, part of the Great Dividing

Range that stretches from the high country in eastern Victoria near

Omeo and Buchan through central Victoria to Stawell in the west.

Gold has been found throughout these upland regions in both hard

rock and alluvial deposits. Quartz reefs are oriented north-south as

a result of the east-west orientation of the Palaeozoic compression.

Shallow alluvial deposits are found across the uplands while the

buried deep leads follow the Cainozoic rivers that ﬂowed out of the

highlands either south towards Bass Strait (the deep lead mines at

Fig. 2. Cradling for alluvial gold, watercolour by S.Gill, 1869 (source: State Library of

Ballarat) or north towards the Murray Basin (the mines around Victoria H86.7/8).

4 P. Davies et al. / Anthropocene 21 (2018) 1–15

Fig. 3. Box sluicing c.1861, photograph by Richard Daintree (source: State Library of Victoria H36573).

through the mud to break up the soil. Gold settled to the bottom capital investment and labour, resulting in the development of

and was recovered when the muddy water was released. company mining where miners worked as employees (Woodland,

Quicksilver or compound cradles were gold-washing machines 2014). Further investment was needed for steam engines and stamp

that used a water wheel or other power source to drive a puddling batteries to process the ore. Crushing batteries with heavy cast iron

shaft, with mercury used for amalgamating gold particles in a stamp heads were used to pulverise the rock into ﬁne sands.

series of cradles or sluice-boxes (Fig. 5). Paddocking was another Refractory pyritic ores required roasting and, by the end of the

important alluvial mining technique that involved stripping an century, chemical treatment. In each stage except roasting, water

area of up to half a hectare down to bedrock. The method was was used to carry the ore through the sequence of treatments and

commonly practised by Chinese miners but it was not reported in provided the means of washing out the gold.

ofﬁcial sources and has been excluded from our analysis. Deep lead mining combined characteristics of both shallow

‘Washdirt’ was auriferous gravel, sand or clay in which the greatest alluvial and hard rock mining. Where ancient gold-bearing rivers

proportion of gold was found, while ‘alluvium’ referred more had been capped by subsequent volcanic deposits, the alluvial

broadly to the gold-bearing soils, clays and gravels found in sands and gravels could occur at considerable depths. By the 1870 s

watercourses, creek ﬂats and adjacent slopes and terraces. some deep lead mines were up to 166 m below the surface (Fahey,

‘Tailings’ were the waste sand fraction that resulted from crushing 1986, p. 50). These underground workings were much like those of

ore, while ‘mullock’ was the barren waste rock extracted from mine hard rock mines and required capital and equipment for

shafts and adits (Ritchie and Hooker, 1997). tunnelling, blasting, hauling out waste rock and ore, and for

Hard rock mining developed from the mid-1850s to extract the draining the mines. The ore treatment process was similar to that

gold visible in quartz reefs. Blasting the rock, hauling it to the surface of surface alluvial workings. Washdirt was treated in puddlers to

and draining and shoring the shafts and tunnels required signiﬁcant separate gold from the sands, gravels and clays, while stamp

Fig. 4. Horse puddler at Forest Creek, Victoria, lithograph by S.T Gill, 1855 (source: State Library of Victoria H94.83/4).

P. Davies et al. / Anthropocene 21 (2018) 1–15 5

Fig. 5. Compound or quicksilver cradle (source: Smyth, R.B., 1869. The Gold Fields and Mineral Districts of Victoria).

batteries were used where it was necessary to crush conglomerate 4. Methods

deposits of cemented gravels.

Hydraulic sluicing was developed in California in the early We have reconstructed the volume of sediment liberated by

1850s and introduced to Victoria by 1860 (Smyth,1980, p.131, 519). different mining methods from detailed historical records.

The technique relied on piping water under pressure through a Our approach has been to identify the number of different

nozzle (known as a ‘monitor') and directing the high-powered types of mining machines on the various gold ﬁelds at different

stream at the working face of a claim (Fig. 6). The water undercut times, and then estimate the typical sediment yield from these

the hillside and washed the deposit into sluice boxes where the machines.

gold was recovered. The residual sludge was then released into

nearby waterways. By the late 1880 s ‘giant monitors’ were being 5. Data sources

used in north-east Victoria that were capable collectively of

washing out up to 1.5 million m of washdirt per year (MSV, 1888, The Mining Department recorded details of mineral production,

p. 29; Sludge Board, 1887, p. xxvi, 17). Dredges were introduced mining leases and associated information from 1859, based on

from New Zealand in the late 1890s (Davey and McCarthy, 2002, quarterly reports provided by District Mining Surveyors and

pp. 84-85). These were treatment plants built on a pontoon that Registrars. This was summarised in the annual series Gold Fields

ﬂoated on a pond or river and used a chain of buckets to scrape up Statistics (1860–1863), Mineral Statistics of Victoria (1864–1888)

the washdirt, passing it through a series of screens and separators and thereafter the Annual Report of the Secretary for Mines and the

to extract the gold, and releasing the sludge back into the pond. As Statistical Register of Victoria. These reports included tables of

they were mostly a 20th-century technology we have excluded ‘Machinery on the Gold Fields’ for alluvial and quartz mining, with

them from our current analysis. breakdowns by each of the seven Mining Districts and the divisions

There was considerable overlap in the distribution of different and subdivisions they contained. The ﬁnal year for which details of

branches of mining, with most methods used in most districts at ‘Machinery on the Gold Fields’ was published was 1891. In many

some time. Inevitably, however, local conditions favoured certain cases, however, miners, mining companies and mining surveyors

techniques over others. Deep lead mines were concentrated in neglected to supply information to the department. These missing

the area between Ballarat, Creswick and Maryborough and in the data reduce the reported quantities of machinery, and thus

north around Chiltern and Rutherglen. Bendigo was the centre alluvium processed, by an unknown but signiﬁcant factor. Alluvial

for puddling, with up to 2000 machines in operation at the mining production was also poorly recorded during the depression

height of the industry in 1859, and the district was later years of the 1890 s and thus we limit our formal analysis to the

renowned for its rich quartz reefs in the 1870s and 1880s. The period ending in 1891.

hilly, well-watered country in the north-east of the state around We have developed a set of scale factors to calculate the amount

Beechworth, Yackandandah and Mitta Mitta was well suited to of washdirt processed by miners using different alluvial mining

the adoption of hydraulic sluicing for working the deep alluvial techniques, including puddlers, compound cradles, ground and

deposits. box sluicing, and hydraulic sluicing. These are based on

6 P. Davies et al. / Anthropocene 21 (2018) 1–15

Fig. 6. Hydraulic sluicing nozzle c.1880–1884 (source: State Library of Victoria).

descriptions in contemporary historical sources, including the example, a more typical amount was for two or three men to wash

1859 Royal Commission into the Sludge Question, Robert Brough 20–50 cubic yards each per day in a ground sluice (Smyth, 1980,

Smyth's Gold Fields and Mineral Districts of Victoria (1869 [1980]), pp.131–132). In some cases, miners joined multiple sluice boxes

quarterly Reports of the Mining Surveyors and Registrars and the into lengthy tail races to process larger volumes of material. We

report of the Sludge Board (1887). Historical estimates of washdirt have thus applied a conservative multiplier of 5 cubic yards per

volumes were recorded as cubic yards, which we convert into cubic sluice box per day, operating for 200 days per year, meaning each

metres by a multiple of 0.765. sluice could process at least 1000 cubic yards per year. This is a

In 1859 the Royal Commission into the Sludge Question conservative estimate and in many cases much greater volumes

reported that puddlers processed 10 cubic yards per day, and were washed (Smyth, 1980, pp.126–131).

each puddler on average worked 200 days during the year, or about Hydraulic sluicing was generally conﬁned to the Beechworth

eight months (Royal Commission, 1859, p.20). This limit was Mining District in north-eastern Victoria, with most operations

determined by available water supplies. References to steam and capable of mobilising thousands of cubic yards of alluvium every

horse-powered puddlers have been aggregated. We calculate 10 week. We use a multiplier of 500 cubic yards per day for each

cubic yards per day for each puddler, or 2000 cubic yards per mill sluicing plant, operating for 200 days per year, or 100,000 cubic

per year. yards per annum.

Compound cradles were ﬁrst recorded on the goldﬁelds in 1866 Historical sources, including Mineral Statistics of Victoria, also

and were used most commonly in the Maryborough, Castlemaine provide estimates of the annual tonnage of quartz crushed in

and Ararat Mining Districts. We estimate that each device was used stamp batteries for each Mining District. These are summarised in

to process a minimum of 10 cubic yards per day, with an average of Table 1. An alternative but parallel source of historical data is the

200 days worked during the year, thus giving a total of 2000 cubic ‘VicProd’ database, produced by Geoscience Victoria (Department

yards per compound cradle per year (Smyth, 1980, pp.618–619). of Primary Industries c.2002). VicProd captures historical data on

In ground and box sluicing, the volume of material a miner various aspects of gold production, including quartz tailings, for

could process varied according to the amount of water available the period 1864–1960, based on published historical reports.

and the nature of the washdirt itself. While up to 150 cubic yards in Metadata from Geoscience Victoria indicate, however, that data

a short winter's day at Yackandandah was ‘not uncommon’, for capture for our study period, especially Bendigo/Sandhurst, was

Table 1

Volumes of alluvium and quartz tailings mobilised (converted into m ) between 1859 and 1891 per Mining District (rounded to nearest 1000).

Puddlers Compound cradle Sluice box Hydraulic sluice Quartz tailings Percentage of statewide yield Totals (m )

Ballarat 16,850,000 179,000 21,027,000 994,000 7,099,000 9.4% 46,149,000

Beechworth 3,184,000 78,000 247,327,000 37,485,000 1,442,000 58.8% 289,516,000

Sandhurst 20,224,000 112,000 3,311,000 1,989,000 5,954,000 6.4% 31,590,000

Maryborough 25,696,000 3,023,000 2,354,000 1,300,000 1,224,000 6.8% 33,597,000

Castlemaine 18,245,000 1,567,000 10,575,000 16,830,000 2,456,000 10% 49,673,000

Ararat 3,791,000 828,000 2,773,000 0 1,298,000 1.8% 8,690,000

Gippsland 234,000 28,000 26,671,000 5,661,000 673,000 6.8% 33,267,000

Totals 88,224,000 5,815,000 314,038,000 64,259,000 20,146,000 100% 492,482,000

P. Davies et al. / Anthropocene 21 (2018) 1–15 7

very uneven and thus understates volumes of treated quartz by, in

some cases, an order of magnitude or more. For this reason we use

MSV historical data instead, as more complete, consistent and

reliable, for our analysis of quartz volumes.

6. Results

The total volume of alluvial washdirt and quartz tailings

mobilised by Victorian gold miners in the period 1859–1891 is

estimated to be 644 million cubic yards or almost half a billion cubic

metres (Table 1). Speciﬁc volumes for each of the seven Mining

Districts are provided in Table 1. We can also extrapolate volumes of

alluvial sediment mobilised during the 1890s on the basis of similar

industrial activity in the 1880s, which gives an additional 145 million

m (e.g. Howitt,1895, pp.12–13). Simple panning and cradling in the

ﬁrst few years of the goldrush likely producedanother 20millionm ,

along with puddling and ground and box sluicing that was poorly

recorded for this period (Smyth, 1980, pp.79–80). A probable

Fig. 7. Pie chart showing percentage of alluvium mobilised by each mining

historical range for the period 1851 to 1900 is thus somewhat greater

3 technology.

than 850 million cubic yards (650 million m ) of mobilised alluvium

and quartz ore. It is also worth noting that for the period 1900–1915,

mining by hydraulic dredges across Victoria processed a total of 174 6.1. Sludge production by catchment

million m of washdirt, most of which was returned directly to the

streams (Secretary for Mines, 1915, p.36). The sludge volumes above are produced by mining district, but

Hydraulic sluicing with high-pressure nozzles represents a in this section we estimate volumes of historical mining sediment

relatively small proportion of alluvium from the period 1859 to for Victoria's major river catchments to put the sediment supply in

1891, around 13% of the total (Fig. 7). Puddlers represent a slightly perspective with other mining regions (Table 2; Fig. 9). We base

‘ ’

larger proportion from the same period, at 17.9%, with compound this analysis on the VicMine database created by Geoscience

cradles another 1.2%. Ground sluicing and sluice boxes account for Victoria which captures historical mine locations, production

the majority of alluvium mobilised, at 63.8%. The 20 million m of volumes and spatial data for over 16,000 gold mines (Department

quartz tailings produced by ore crushing was about 4%, a relatively of Primary Industries c.2002). While the production data are far

small proportion, of all the material mobilised by the gold mining from complete, these data provide a solid basis for spatial analysis.

industry in this period (Fig. 8). Based on the total volume of alluvium and quartz ore mobilised for

Fig. 8. Map of Victoria showing production of alluvium by mining technique and Mining District.

8 P. Davies et al. / Anthropocene 21 (2018) 1–15

Table 2

Volumes of alluvium and quartz tailings mobilised (converted into m ) between 1859 and 1891 per major river catchment (rounded to nearest 1000) and compared with

background pre-European sediment yields.

3 a -1 b -1

Catchment Ore m Ore Kt.a Background sediment yield (Kt.a ) Ratio sludge to background annual yield

Avoca River 7,783,000 389 12 32

Avon River-Tyrell Lake 897,000 45

Barwon River-Lake Corangamite 38,132,000 1907 3 636

Broken River 4,374,000 219

Campaspe River 13,503,000 675 19.3 35

East Gippsland 1,834,000 92

Glenelg River 265,000 13

Goulburn River 41,932,000 2097 88 24

Hopkins River 6,081,000 304

Kiewa River 21,598,000 1080

Loddon River 80,142,000 4007 20 200

Mitchell-Thomson Rivers 28,978,000 1449 36 40

Murray Riverina 47,843,000 2392

Ovens River 90,081,000 4504 17.5 257

Snowy River 2,718,000 136

Upper Murray River 96,434,000 4822 96 50

Werribee River 2,712,000 136

Wimmera River 5,517,000 276

Yarra River 1,658,000 83 19 4

Total 492,482,000 Ave. 142

Notes: (a) value converts m to tonnes by multiplying by density of 1.6; (b) NLWRA (2001) estimated background sediment yield for a selection of Victorian catchments using

the Sednet model

each of the seven Mining Districts, we divide these by the count of consistent with our understanding of the production of major

mines for each district to establish proxy volumes for each mined sources of historical mining sediment. Sludge affected around

area and approximate volumes per mine. We then use spatial data three-quarters of river catchments in Victoria (Fig.10), and the only

provided by the Australian Hydrological Geospatial Fabric (AHGF) major river catchments not affected by sludge were the Glenelg

riverregions to estimate volumesofminingsedimentpercatchment. and the Wimmera in the west, the Broken River in the north, and

These data reveal that the largest volumes of mining-related most streams east of the Tambo in Gippsland in the east of the

sediment in 19th-century Victoria ﬂowed into the Ovens River, state. Comparing the sediment released by sludge with estimates

Goulburn River, Loddon River, Barwon River tributaries and Upper of pre-European sediment yield (Table 2) suggests that the volume

Murray waterways including the Mitta Mitta. This distribution is of sludge released into rivers exceeded the background rate by an

Fig. 9. Victorian river catchments with volumes of historical mining sediment in millions of cubic metres, and Mining District volumes in red.

P. Davies et al. / Anthropocene 21 (2018) 1–15 9

Fig. 10. Victorian rivers affected by mining sludge in 1886, reconstructed from evidence in Sludge Board (1887).

average of 140 times, with the Yarra being the lowest, with four large cobbles, small gravels, and ﬁne sands and silts. The cobbles

times, and the Barwon being the highest, exceeding the were generally forked out of the tail races and stacked on site while

background rates by over 600 times. A later paper will compare the gravels, sands and silts were ﬂushed downstream. Waste

the sludge yield with other anthropogenic sources of sediment material from dredging was also produced in a range of sizes, all of

such as gullying. which was released in the waste water. From 1904, however,

The VicMine data suggest that most historical gold mining (and dredges were required to work in self-contained ponds, with the

sludge production) took place in the upper reaches of each of the 19 tailings returned to the work site (Dredging and Sluicing Inquiry

mined catchments. Mined sub-catchments had an average size of Board, 1914, p.12).

73 km and were most common on 2nd order streams. This means

that mines were on average 12 km from the river headwater and 7. Contemporary descriptions of the fate of

714 km from the river outlet. Considering just the major trunk mining sediment

streams in the state, there are about 11,90 0 km of trunk streams, of

which about 2800 (23%) were recognised to have been affected by Mining waste in waterways was a major problem for farmers

sludge in the sludge enquiry of 1887 (Fig.10). Thus one quarter of the and communities downstream from mining areas for at least half a

length of major streams in the state have been affected by sludge. century. The physical impacts of the sludge are fully described in

Lawrence and Davies (2014), which we paraphrase here. The ﬁrst

6.2. Character of the sediment released complaints about sludge emerged within a few years of the start of

the gold rush. The Bendigo Advertiser alone carried over 4000

Each branch of gold mining in Victoria produced sludge with sludge-related stories between 1855 and 1901, demonstrating the

distinct characteristics, based on the kinds of deposits being extent of contemporary concern. Sediment-choked waterways

worked and the treatment processes used (Sludge Board, 1887, pp. raised the level of creek beds and covered adjacent land after

vii–xiii; Table 3). Puddlers were favoured for working stiff clay soils ﬂoods. The creeks and waterholes became unusable for watering

and produced sludge high in clay and silt that remained in stock, for human consumption, and for watering gardens and

suspension to be carried long distances downstream. When orchards. Severe damage from sludge was reported up to

retained in settling ponds, sludge from puddlers formed a hard 64 kilometres below the mining town of Ballarat. Laanecoorie

crust on top but remained liquid underneath. After being deposited Reservoir, built in 1891 downstream of major goldﬁelds on the

on ﬂood plains it formed an impermeable layer that reformed in Loddon River, had already accumulated 3 m of silt in its basin by

the ﬁrst rain after ploughing (Peterson, 1996, pp.44–45). Stamp 1908. Although multiple public enquiries, beginning as early as

batteries reduced quartz and gravels to a ﬁne sand that settled out 1856, investigated ‘the sludge problem’ it was accepted as the

in treatment ponds, but the sand could be carried long distances in inevitable consequence of gold mining and the price of progress

ﬂoodwaters and when settling dams were not used. The mesh sizes and development (Figs. 11 and 12). Initially the response was to

used in stamp batteries suggest that quartz tailing sands generally divert sludge away from mining centres via sludge channels and

ranged between 1 mm and 2 mm across (e.g. MSV, 1870, p.43). drains, and it was only after 1900 that serious attempts were made

Ground sluicing and hydraulic sluicing produced a combination of to control and retain sludge at the point of generation.

10 P. Davies et al. / Anthropocene 21 (2018) 1–15

Table 3

Historical mining practices, sludge sediments and sediment deposition.

Processing type Location Date range Sediments Fate of sediment

Puddlers Ballarat, Bendigo, Creswick, Maryborough, 1850s– clay, silt Suspended load, overbank deposition

Castlemaine 1870 s

Stamp batteries Bendigo, Ballarat, Castlemaine 1860s– silt, sand Suspended load, channel bedload, overbank deposition, local

1900 s storage

Sluicing and North-east Victoria 1860s– clay, silt, sand, Suspended load, channel bedload, overbank deposition, local

dredging 1900 s gravel storage

8. Discussion extracted from mines in the Swale catchment in the UK during

the 18th and 19th centuries, with up to 155,000 tonnes of Pb-

Most catchments in Victoria, and many major streams, have contaminated sediment remaining in storage in the catchment

been affected by the 0.65 billion cubic metres of sludge produced (Dennis 2005, p.267; Dennis et al., 2009, p.463). Similar volumes of

by historical gold mining. In the following discussion we compare arsenic contaminated sediments (85,000 m ) were delivered to the

the scale of effect in Victoria with that experienced elsewhere, then Shag River in New Zealand (Black et al., 2004).

explain the spatial and temporal patterns of sludge, and ﬁnally Gold mining in 19th-century California was dominated by

comment on its present effects. hydraulic sluicing, with about 400 hydraulic mines operating

throughout the Sierra Nevada by 1880 (Isenberg, 2005, p.256). The

8.1. Comparison with background sediment supply greatest volumes of excavated sediment were on the Yuba,

American, Feather and Bear Rivers which drain into the

Several studies have estimated the effect of European land-uses Sacramento River, a region that encompassed the principal

changes on erosion rates and sediment supply in Victoria. None of hydraulic mines in California (Greenland, 2001, p.14). Several

these studies, however, have considered the effect of mining attempts have been made to calculate the volumes of material

sediments. mobilised by hydraulic sluicing. Lindgren (1911, p.20-21), for

example, determined that 990 million m of material came from

8.2. Comparison with other mining areas hydraulic mining on the four main rivers, while Gilbert, 1917, p.43;

Rohe, 1986) estimated that 1.27 billion m of debris had been

The volumes of sediment delivered to streams by gold mining in washed into San Francisco Bay. More recently, Wohl estimates that

Victoria in the 19th century are comparable with yields from 990 million m of material accumulated in the four main mining

contemporary mining regions in similar mining booms elsewhere, waterways (Wohl, 2004, pp.81–83).

including England, California, New Zealand and Tasmania. In Attempts have also been made to calculate sediment budgets

making these comparisons we need to distinguish between for historical mining operations on several rivers in the island of

production and delivery of sediment, and the storage of that Tasmania, Australia. Tin mining on the Ringarooma River in north-

sediment. Our analysis here is about sediment delivered to east Tasmania, for example, began in 1875 using hydraulic

waterways from mines and does not consider storage (the subject methods and, with the introduction of dredging, continued until

of a later paper). Dennis and others (2009), for example, have c.1980. Knighton (1989, p.95) used historical records to estimate

determined that approximately 550,000 tonnes of Pb were that numerous mines delivered 40 million m of tailings to the

Fig. 11. Sludge choking Spring Creek near Daylesford in central Victoria, c.1858 (source: State Library Victoria H84.167/31).

P. Davies et al. / Anthropocene 21 (2018) 1–15 11

Fig. 12. Sludge on the Leigh River at Shelford in 1909, 60 km south of the mining centre of Ballarat (source: Sludge Abatement Board, 1910, Plate S).

Ringarooma. On the west coast, the Mount Lyell Copper Mine at Bendigo and Maryborough, with average rainfall of around

Queenstown operated for almost a century from 1896 (Blainey, 550 mm per year (Bureau of Meteorology).

1993), and Locher (1996) estimated that 97 million tonnes of Five other Mining Districts (Ballarat, Sandhurst/Bendigo, Mary-

mining sediment were discharged down the Queen and King Rivers borough, Castlemaine and Gippsland) each accounted for between

in that period, with around 10% of the total held in river storages 6% and 10% of the total sediment production, which reﬂects the

and the remainder stored in the delta at the river mouth. diverse nature of the mining geology and technologies applied in

When summarised in terms of sediment yield per unit each region, along with the lower volumes of water available for

catchment area (Table 4), the average sludge production from sluicing. Large volumes of quartz debris from the Ballarat and

Victorian catchments is not large compared to the examples Sandhurst/Bendigo districts reﬂects the special place of this region

described above. All these examples, however, are from production as the largest underground auriferous quartz province in the world

in a small number of river basins. By contrast, on the Victorian at the time (Phillips et al., 2003, p.380). Puddling of stiff gold-

goldﬁelds a large number of smaller mining operations were bearing clays was most common in the Castlemaine, Maryborough,

spread out over multiple catchments across much of the state, Ballarat and Sandhurst/Bendigo districts and less frequent in the

resulting in more widespread environmental impact to a quarter of eastern part of Victoria including the Beechworth and Gippsland

the major streams in the state. districts. The lower overall proportion of material at Ararat (1.8%)

reﬂects the smaller scale of mining and poorer quality of gold

8.3. Explaining the distribution of sediment deposits in this westerly region.

The spatial distribution of alluvium is structured by the diverse 8.4. Explaining the timing of sludge delivery

nature of mineralogical deposits across Victoria, by rainfall and by

the various technologies used by miners to extract gold. The The timing of sludge releases to streams is controlled by

Beechworth Mining District, for example, accounts for 58.8% of all economic factors and by the availability of water. The total annual

the alluvium mobilised in Victoria during our study period volume of alluvium released by gold mining in Victoria rose to a

3 3

(Table 1). The bulk of this (247 million m ) derives from ground peak in 1867 at 19.4 million m (Fig. 13a). Thereafter, there was a

sluicing and box sluicing, which in turn relates to the nature of gold progressive decline in washdirt volumes, down to 10.9 million m

deposits in the region and its relatively high rainfall (Fig. 8). Most by 1891. This decline was closely associated with reductions in both

gold in the area was in the form of very ﬁne grains distributed the population of alluvial miners and alluvial gold yields (Fig. 13b

through placer deposits. Recovering the gold required abundant and c). The broad pattern was that declining numbers of miners

supplies of water to sluice large areas of auriferous washdirt. were using, overall, less water and recovering smaller amounts of

Some of the distribution of mining sediments can be explained gold.

by the pattern of rainfall (Fig. 8). Wetter areas generated both more The peak in washdirt volumes in 1867 can be explained by

sludge, through more hydraulic mining, and also washed more several factors. The 1865–66 drought, which was the worst known

sludge into streams. Hence, the greatest volume of mining by Europeans in Victoria to that time, had eased and stream ﬂows

sediment was generated in the Ovens, Kiewa and Mitta Mitta were improving (Keating, 1992, pp.33–39). This provided more

river basins in the Beechworth region (Fig. 9). This area of north- water for sluicing and resulted in more washdirt being processed.

east Victoria receives almost 1000 mm of rain on average per Good rains in the early 1870 s meant totals remained high. This

annum, which meant that surface and ground water for sluicing period also corresponds to the effective introduction of water-right

was available for much of the year (Davies et al., 2016). Rainfall licences under the 1865 Mining Statute. These licences, issued for

generally declines to the west in Victoria to around 750 mm per up to 15 years, provided greater certainty for miners investing

year along the Great Dividing Range in central Victoria, and is even thousands of pounds in the construction of races and other water

lower further to the north of the divide in the mining centres of infrastructure for mining (Davies and Lawrence, 2014, p.180). More

12 P. Davies et al. / Anthropocene 21 (2018) 1–15

Table 4

Total sludge production relative to catchment area, from mining-impacted rivers reported in the literature, compared to Victorian rivers.

2 3 6 3 2

Area of catchment affected (km ) Delivery (m Â 10 ) Sludge m per km of catchment

Ringarooma R. (Tas. Aust.) 1190 40 33,613

Queen R. (Tas. Aust.) 80 97 1,212,500

R. Swale (UK) 80 0.15 6875

Sacramento R. (USA) 18,000 990 55,000

Shag R. (NZ) 550 0.85 1545

Victoria (all affected rivers)(average) 205,000 644 3140

Ovens R. (max.) 6360 90 14,151

water led to more gold mining (both alluvial and quartz) and more investigation that is reconstructing the impact of historical gold

mobilised sediment. Improved recording and reporting of alluvial mining on past and present rivers. Subsequent articles will

mining machinery by district mining surveyors in this period (late therefore discuss the legacy effects of historical sludge loads on

1860 s–early 1870 s) also appears to have been a factor in the modern rivers, so we make just a few observations here. The most

increase. remarkable aspect of the sludge story in Victorian rivers is the

A second, lesser peak occurred in 1879, at 18 million m . This extent to which these historically devastating impacts are now all

peak may relate to the ending, transfer, and renewal, of 10 and but forgotten. The major visible legacy of the sludge are sheets of

15 year water-right licences issued in the 1860 s, with alluvial buff-coloured ﬁne sands and silts that blanket river ﬂoodplains

miners keen to maximise their water entitlements (Board, 1879– (Fig. 14). These sheets can be up to 2 m thick and are most

80, pp.37–42). A return to dry conditions in the early 1880s, prominent on the Loddon, Ovens and Campaspe Rivers. It is often

however, contributed to the overall decline in washdirt volumes difﬁcult to distinguish sediment from mining, from sediment from

thereafter (Keating, 1992, p.51). gullying and other accelerated erosion processes that occurred at

similar times in these catchments. Coarser sediment from mining

8.5. The relationship between gold and sludge production still remains in many channels, forming ‘sand slugs’. These coarse

pulses of sediment have been implicated in triggering river

There are interesting relationships between the number of avulsions. A secondary consequence of gold mining was the

miners employed on the gold ﬁelds and the production of gold and wholesale clearing of forest from catchments. Although many of

production of sludge. Alluvial gold production peaked in Victoria at these forests have regrown, it is likely that this clearing led to

the very beginning of the gold rush in 1852, when around 4 million accelerated catchment erosion. Neither mining sludge nor

troy ounces (approximately 128 t) were recovered Gold Fields’ catchment clearing have been factored into modelled estimates

Commission of Enquiry, 1854–5, pp.lii–liii; Serle, 1968, pp.390- of post-settlement sediment loads (e.g. National Land and Water

391). This was when surface gold was at its easiest to ﬁnd. Ofﬁcial Resources Audit, 2001; Prosser et al., 2001).

ﬁgures may even understate the total, however, as many miners Sediments derived from historical mining can also be contami-

left the colony with gold dust and nuggets in their personal nated with mercury. Our preliminary research estimates that a

possession. Alluvial gold yields remained above 1 million ounces minimum of 119 t of mercury were discharged from Victorian

per year until 1865 but there was a steady decline in yields over the quartz mines in the 19th century, with minor additional amounts

following decades, until by the end of our study period in 1891, from alluvial sluicing activity (Davies et al., 2015). Several studies

annual alluvial gold yields had declined to less than 200,000 have assessed mercury contamination in catchments in historical

ounces (Government Statist, 1892, p.70). Fig. 13a and b reveal that mining areas around Victoria, including the Lerderderg River

the recovery of alluvial gold declined over the years as volumes of (Bycroft et al.,1982), Reedy Creek (Churchill et al., 2004), Raspberry

alluvium were yielding less gold. It is interesting to note that this Creek (Ealey et al., 1982), the upper Goulburn (McRedie 1982) and

period of highest gold production coincided with comparatively Lake Wellington (Fabris, 2012). These have identiﬁed elevated

modest volumes of mobilised sediment. levels of mercury in water, sediments, plants and ﬁsh downstream

A similar pattern is evident in relation to the population of from old gold workings. Our current research is examining

alluvial miners. Numbers were at their highest in 1858, when mercury levels in mining legacy sediments.

147,358 adult males were reported on the goldﬁelds, the great Sediment mobilisation, measured as turbidity or total sus-

majority of whom were engaged in alluvial mining (Serle, 1968, pended solids, is seen as a major threat to many inland waterways

p.388; Smyth,1980, p.511). Totals declined over the years, however, in Australia and elsewhere (e.g. National Land and Water Resources

as many took up employment elsewhere or left Victoria altogether. Audit, 2011). The current paradigm is that, particularly in Victoria,

By the end of our study period in 1891, the number of alluvial most of the sediment is derived from gully and riverbank erosion,

miners had shrunk to 10,520, including 2590 Chinese (Government with concomitant management activities focused on minimising

Statist, 1892(Part II):28). Fig. 13c indicates that the amount of these sources (e.g. Moran et al., 2005). We contend, however, that

alluvial gold per miner varied on average between 12 and 22 without accounting for large historical loads of anthropogenic

ounces per year, but declining numbers of active miners reduced alluvium (Macklin et al., 2014) generated and redistributed

overall yields. through historical mining activities it will be difﬁcult to mitigate

the threat of increased sediment loads to lowland rivers.

9. The present impact of sludge on victorian rivers One important implication is in the areas of conservation

ecology and environmental restoration, where conservation relies

Victorian waterways have been altered by more than 160 years on the accurate identiﬁcation of conditions prior to disturbance.

of European-settler activity but changes are conventionally The status of a target species (in conservation ecology) or

attributed to agriculture and land clearance. The legacy impacts environmental condition (in restoration ecology) is assessed

of gold mining on waterways in Victoria has not been recognised against a reference condition (baseline). The reference condition,

and remains under-researched, unlike other mining regions where however, may be substantially different than an even earlier state

impacts have been better-documented (e.g. Alpers et al., 2005; of the system. Pauly (1995) asserted that in ﬁsheries conservation,

Morse, 2003; Rohe, 1983). This study is part of a larger scientists used the stock size of a target species at the beginning of

P. Davies et al. / Anthropocene 21 (2018) 1–15 13

Fig. 13. Fig.13a plots the annual volume of alluvium production (m ), the annual alluvial gold yield and the population of alluvial miners from 1859 to 1891. Fig.13b shows the

increase through time in the volume of alluvium per ounce of gold recovered, and Fig. 13c shows the annual change in alluvial gold yield per person.

their career as the baseline for that species; and used that baseline prior to European settlement, gravel bed streams had a meander-

to determine the decline in that species. When the next generation ing form and were bordered by ﬂoodplains of ﬁne silt. It was later

of scientists start, their baseline is lower than their predecessors. shown, however, that these landforms were actually created by

Shifting baselines confound targeting setting. As Humphries and sedimentation behind 17th to 19th-century mill dams. Prior to

Winemiller (2008) note ‘[t]he passage of time and lack of data European settlement the streams were actually small anabranch-

about conditions before these disturbances [mining in this ing channels in large vegetated wetlands. Multi-billion-dollar

instance] commenced obscures our perception of historic con- restoration activities were focussing on the wrong target

ditions, making it difﬁcult to establish accurate restoration targets.’ conditions (Walter and Merrits, 2008).

A clear example of this is the restoration of mid-Atlantic US Fine-grained analysis of historical records provides enough

streams (Walter and Merrits, 2008). It was originally believed that, information to reconstruct the ﬁrst regional-scale assessment of

14 P. Davies et al. / Anthropocene 21 (2018) 1–15

Fig. 14. Sludge legacy sediments (the 1 m-thick buff-coloured upper unit) covering the ﬂoodplain of the Ovens River at Tarrawingee; scale in 0.2 m increments.

the volumes and distribution of sediment (sludge) from historical estimates of anthropogenic sediment used for national catchment

gold mining in Victoria. The mining methods used throughout the management, and this should be done. Much of this mined

Victorian goldﬁelds during the 19th century were very effective at sediment is now stored in ﬂoodplains and as slugs of coarse

delivering sediment directly into streams. Our study reveals that, sediment in stream beds. Understanding these historical sources

unlike more spatially concentrated mining in other parts of the allows us to explore how our streams respond, and potentially,

world at the time, widespread mining activity in Victoria delivered recover from human disturbance.

sediment into the headwaters of several large catchments. The

Acknowledgement

input of sediment was almost simultaneous across the state,

during a relatively short period of time. The nature of the low

This research was funded by the Australian Research Council

gradient and wide ﬂoodplains in most large streams in Victoria

(grant number DP160100799).

means that conditions were optimal for ﬁne grain deposition from

these upstream sources. References

Alluvial gold mining was widespread throughout eastern

Australia in the 19th century. Other mining areas in the states of Alpers, C., Hunerlach, M., May, J., Hothem, R., 2005. Mercury Contamination from

Historical Gold Mining in California. Publications of the US Geological Survey

New South Wales and Queensland could also be expected to have

(Paper 61).

had high historical sediment yields from this source. These yields

Appleton, J.D., Williams, T.M., Orbea, H., Carrasco, M., 2001. Fluvial contamination

have yet to be recognised in sediment budgets from anthropogenic associated with artisanal gold mining in the Ponce Enriquez, Portovelo-Zaruma

and Nambija areas, Ecuador. Water Air Soil Pollut. 131 (1), 19–39. doi:http://dx.

sources. In addition, gold miners decimated forests in the vicinity

doi.org/10.1023/A:1011965430757.

of the goldﬁelds for fuel and other purposes (Frost, 2013). This

Black, A., Craw, D., Youngson, J.H., Karubaba, J., 2004. Natural recovery rates of a river

deforestation would also have increased the sediment yield from system impacted by mine tailing discharge: shag River, East Otago, New

Zealand. J. Geochem Explor. 84 (1), 21–34. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j. hillslopes during this time. Many of these areas have since

gexplo.2004.02.002.

reforested, disguising the extent and severity of disturbance.

Blainey, G., 1993. The Peaks of Lyell, 5th edition St. David's Park Publishing, Hobart.

Contemporary descriptions reveal that gold mining sediment in Bureau of Meteorology, Climate Data Online, (Accessed 15 September 2017) http://

the form of sludge transformed entire landscapes, degraded one- www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/.

Board, 1879. Report of the Board Appointed to Advise the Government as to the Best

quarter of Victoria's major rivers and damaged large areas of

Mode of Developing the Auriferous and Mineral Resources of the Colony. No.92.

farmland across the colony. Debate and discussion on the problem

Parliament of Victoria, Melbourne.

ﬁlled newspapers for more than 50 years and generated numerous Sludge Board, 1887. Report of the Board Appointed by His Excellency the Governor

in Council to Inquire into the Sludge Question; Together with the Minutes of

parliamentary inquiries. One quarter of the length of major

Evidence, Notes by the Board, Etc.. Parliament of Victoria, Melbourne (No.10).

streams in the state have been affected by sludge. The physical

Boggs, G.S., Evans, K.G., Devonport, C.C., Moliere, D.R., Saynor, M.J., 2000. Assessing

impact of this mining, however, is now largely forgotten and catchment-wide mining-related impacts on sediment movement in the Swift

Creek catchment, Northern Territory, Australia, using GIS and landform-

unrecognised, as is the degree to which rivers might have

evolution modelling techniques. J. Environ. Manag. 59 (4), 321–334. doi:http://

ﬁ

recovered and readjusted from signi cant increases, and later dx.doi.org/10.1006/jema.2000.0371.

decreases, in sediment supply. The long-term impacts of historical Bowman, D.M., 2001. Future eating and country keeping: what role has

environmental history in the management of biodiversity? J. Biogeogr. 28 (5),

gold mining on streams still needs to be determined.

549–564. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2699.2001.00586.x.

Using historical records we estimate the volume of sediment

Bradshaw, C.J., 2012. Little left to lose: deforestation and forest degradation in

delivered to Victorian streams by alluvial and quartz gold mining Australia since European colonization. J. Plant Ecol. 5 (1), 109–120. doi:http://

3 dx.doi.org/10.1093/jpe/rtr038.

was at least 650 million m between 1851 and 1900. This estimate

Butzer, K.W., Helgren, D.M., 2005. Livestock, land cover, and environmental history:

excludes several major mining methods and does not take into

the tablelands of new south wales, Australia,1820–1920. Ann. Assoc. Am. Geogr.

account the large volumes of material mobilised by bucket 95 (1), 80–111. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j. 1467-8306.2005.00451.x.

dredging and hydraulic sluice mining in the 20th century. Bycroft, B.M., Coller, B.A.W., Deacon, G.B., Coleman, D.J., Lake, P.S., 1982. Mercury

contamination of the lerderderg river, victoria, Australia, from an abandoned

Historical gold mining sediments have not been included in

gold ﬁeld. Environ. Pollut. (Ser. A) 28, 135–147.

P. Davies et al. / Anthropocene 21 (2018) 1–15 15

Churchill, R.C., Meathrel, C.E., Suter, P.J., 2004. A retrospective assessment of gold Isenberg, A., 2005. Mining California: An Ecological History. Hill and Wang, New

mining in the Reedy Creek sub-catchment, northeast Victoria, Australia : York.

residual mercury contamination 100 years later. Environ. Pollut. 132 (2), 355– James, L.A., 1999. Time and the persistence of alluvium: river engineering, ﬂuvial

363. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2004.03.001. geomorphology, and mining sediment in California. Geomorphology 31 (1),

Clement, A.J.H., Nováková, T., Hudson-Edwards, K.A., Fuller, I.C., Macklin, M.G., Fox, 265–290. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0169-555X(99)00084-7.

E.G., Zapico, I., 2017. The environmental and geomorphological impacts of Keating, J., 1992. The Drought Walked Through: A History of Water Shortage in

historical gold mining in the Ohinemuri and Waihou river catchments, Victoria. Department of Water Resources, Victoria, Melbourne.

Coromandel, New Zealand. Geomorphology 295, 159–175. doi:http://dx.doi. Knighton, A.D., 1989. River adjustment to changes in sediment load: the effects of

org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2017.06.011. tin mining on the Ringarooma River, Tasmania 1875–1984. Earth Surf. Process.

Royal Commission, 1859. Report of the Royal Commission Appointed to Enquire into Landf. 14 (4), 333–359. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/esp.3290140408.

the Best Method of Removing the Sludge from the Gold Fields, No.7. Parliament Lawrence, S., Davies, P., 2014. The sludge question: the regulation of mine tailings in

of Victoria, Melbourne. nineteenth-century victoria. Environ. Hist. 20, 385–410.

Sludge Committee, 1887. Sludge Committee. Return to an Order of the House Dated Ligar, C.W., Hodgkinson, C., Smyth, R.B., 1865. Report on the Adviseableness of

5 th July, 1887. Parliament of Victoria, Melbourne C.–No.6. Establishing State Forests, No .77. Parliament of Victoria, Melbourne.

Davey, C., McCarthy, P.L., 2002. The development of victorian gold mining Lindgren, W., 1911. The Tertiary Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California,

technology. Vic. Hist. J. 73 (1), 64–92. Professional Paper 73. United States Geological Survey, Washington.

Davey, C., 1996. The origins of victorian mining technology, 1851–1900. Artefact 19, Locher, H., 1996. Response of the King and Queen Rivers, Tasmania, to dramatic

52–62. changes in ﬂow and sediment load. First Australian Stream Management

Davies, P., Lawrence, S., 2014. A mere thread of land: water races: gold mining and Conference, Merrijig, Vic. date 19–23 February 1996.

water law in colonial Victoria. J. Aust. Colon. Hist. 16, 168–187. Lunt, I.D., 2002. Grazed, burnt and cleared: how ecologists have studied century-

Davies, P., Lawrence, S., Turnbull, J., 2015. Mercury use and loss from gold mining in scale vegetation changes in Australia. Aust. J. Bot. 50 (4), 391–407. doi:http://dx.

19 th-century Victoria. Proc. R. Soc. Vict. 127, 44–54. doi:http://dx.doi.org/ doi.org/10.1071/BT01044.

10.1071/RS15017. MSV, 1870. Mineral Statistics of Victoria for the Year 1869. No.8. Parliament of

Davies, P., Turnbull, J., Lawrence, S., 2016. Remote sensing landscapes of water Victoria, Melbourne.

management on the Victorian goldﬁelds, Australia. J. Arch. Sci. 76, 48–55. doi: MSV, 1888. Mineral Statistics of Victoria for the Year 1887. Parliament of Victoria,

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2016.10.009. Melbourne.

Day, G., Dietrich, W.E., Rowland, J.C., Marshall, A.R., 2009. The rapid spread of mine- Macklin, M.G., Lewin, J., Jones, A.F., 2014. Anthropogenic alluvium: an evidence-

derived sediment across the middle ﬂy river ﬂoodplain. In: Bolton, B. (Ed.), The based meta-analysis for the UK Holocene. Anthropocene 6, 26–38. doi:http://

Fly River, Papua New Guinea: Environmental Studies in an Impacted Tropical dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ancene.2014.03.003.

River System. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 113–152. McCredie, A.D., 1982. Mercury and Mining Pollution in the Upper Goulburn River.

Dennis, I.A., Coulthard, T.J., Brewer, P., Macklin, M.G., 2009. The role of ﬂoodplains in Environmental Report No. 9. Graduate School of Environmental Science,

attenuating contaminated sediment ﬂuxes in formerly mined drainage basins. Monash University.

Earth Surf. Process. Landf. 34 (3), 453–466. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ Moran, C., Prosser, I., DeRose, R., Lu, H., Croke, B., Hughes, A., Olley, J., Cannon, G.,

esp.1762. 2005. Sediments and Nutrients in the Rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin:

Dennis, I.A., 2005. The Impact of Historical Metal Mining on the River Swale Targeting the Future. Murray-Darling Basin Commission Knowledge Series 14/

Catchment. University of Wales Aberystwyth, North Yorkshire, U.K (PhD thesis). 05. Murray-Darling Basin Commission, Canberra.

Department of Primary Industries, c.2002, 2002. Earth Resources Development Morse, K.T., 2003. The Nature of Gold: An Environmental History of the Klondike

Division VicMine Database. Geoscience Victoria, Melbourne. Gold Rush. University of Washington Press, Seattle.

Dodson, J., Mooney, S.D., 2002. An assessment of historic human impact on south- National Land and Water Resources Audit, 2011. The australian agriculture

eastern Australian environmental systems, using late Holocene rates of assessment 2001. National Land and Water Resources Audit, Vol. 1. Natural

environmental change. Aust. J. Bot. 50, 455–464. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/ Heritage Trust, Canberra.

BT01031. Pauly, D., 1995. Anecdotes and the shifting baseline syndrome of ﬁsheries. Trends

Donkor, A.K., Bonzongo, J.C.J., Nartey, V.K., Adotey, D.K., 2005. Heavy metals in Ecol. Evol. 10 (10), 430.

sediments of the gold mining impacted Pra River basin, Ghana, West Africa. Soil Peterson, L., 1996. Reading the Landscape: Documentation and Analysis of a Relict

Sediment Contam. 14 (6), 479–503. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/ Feature of Land Degradation in the Bendigo District, Victoria. Monash

15320380500263675. Publications in Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University.

Dredging and Sluicing Inquiry Board, 1914. Report Upon Complaints of Injury by Phillips, G.N., Hughes, M.J.,1996. The geology and gold deposits of the Victorian gold

Dredging and Sluicing. No. 70. Parliament of Victoria, Melbourne. province. Ore Geol. Rev. 11 (5), 255–302. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0169-

Ealey, E.H.M., Deacon, G.B., Coller, B.A.W., Bird, G.J., Bos-Van der Zalm, C.H., Raper, W. 1368(96)00006-6.

G.C., Rusden, S.C.V., 1982. Mercury in the food web of Raspberry Creek. Phillips, G.N., Hughes, M.J., Arne, D.C., Bierlein, F.P., Carey, S.P., Jackson, P., Willman,

Environmental Report No. 12. Graduate School of Environmental Science, C.E., 2003. Gold. In: Birch, W.D. (Ed.), Geology of Victoria. Geological Society of

Monash University. Australia Special Publication 23, Geological Society of Australia (Victoria

Fabris, G., 2012. Lake Wellington Mercury Pilot Study. Melbourne : Fisheries Victoria Division), Sydney, pp. 377–433.

Research Report Series No. 51. Department of Primary Industries, Melbourne. Pickup, G., Higgins, R.J., Warner, R.F., 1981. Erosion and Sediment Yield in Fly River

Fahey, C., 1986. The Berry Deep Leads: An Historical Assessment. Melbourne: Drainage Basins: Papua New Guinea, 132. , pp. 438–456 Erosion and sediment

Department of Conservation, Forests and Lands, Melbourne. transport in Paciﬁc Rim steeplands.

Frost, W., 2013. The environmental impacts of the victorian rushes: miners' Prosser, I.P., Rustomji, P., Young, B., Moran, C., Hughes, A., 2001. Constructing river

accounts during the ﬁrst ﬁve years. Aust. Econ. Hist. Rev. 53 (1), 72–90. doi: basin sediment budgets for the National Land and Water Resources Audit. CSIRO

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8446.2012.00360.x. Land Water Tech. Rep. 15 (01) (Canberra).

Gilbert, G.K., 1917. Hydraulic mining debris in the sierra nevada. Professional Paper Reid, M.A., Tibby, J.C., Penny, D., Gell, P.A.,1995. The use of diatoms to assess past and

105. United States Geological Survey, Washington. present water quality. Aust. Ecol. 20 (1), 57–64. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/

Gillson, L., Willis, K.J., 2004. ‘As Earth’s testimonies tell’: wilderness conservation in j.1442-9993.1995.tb00522.x.

a changing world. Ecol. Lett. 7 (10), 990–998. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ Ritchie, N., Hooker, R., 1997. An archaeologist’s guide to mining terminology. Aust.

j.1461-0248.2004.00658.x. Hist. Archaeol. 15, 3–29.

Gold Fields’ Commission of Enquiry, 1854–5, 1854. Report of the Commission Rohe, R., 1983. Man as geomorphic agent: hydraulic mining in the american west.

Appointed to Enquire into the Conditions of the Gold Fields of Victoria. A.– Pac. Hist. 27, 5–16.

No.76. Parliament of Victoria, Melbourne. Rohe, R., 1986. Man and the land: mining’s impact in the far west. Arizona West 28

Greenland, P., 2001. Hydraulic Mining in California: A Tarnished Legacy. The Arthur (4), 299–338.

H. Clarke Company, Spokane. Secretary for Mines, 1915. Annual Report of the Secretary for Mines for the Year

Hettler, J., Irion, G., Lehmann, B., 1997. Environmental impact of mining waste 1915. No.11. Parliament of Victoria, Melbourne.

disposal on a tropical lowland river system: a case study on the Ok Tedi Mine, Serle, G., 1968. The Golden Age: A History of the Colony of Victoria, 1851–1861.

Papua New Guinea. Miner. Deposita 32 (3), 280–291. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.

Howitt, A.W., 1895. Annual Report of the Secretary for Mines and Water Supply. Sludge Abatement Board, 1910. Report of the Sludge Abatement Board for 1909.

Parliament of Victoria, Melbourne. Parliament of Victoria, Melbourne.

Howitt, W., 1972. Land, Labour and Gold or Two Years in Victoria. (Reprint of 1855 Smyth, R.B.,1980. The Gold Fields and Mineral Districts of Victoria. Facsimile of 1869

edition, Lowden, Kilmore Vic). Edition. Queensberry Hill Press, Melbourne.

Hudson-Edwards, K.A., Macklin, M.G., Taylor, M.P., 1999. 2000 years of sediment- Government Statist, 1892. Statistical Register of the Colony of Victoria for the Year

borne heavy metal storage in the Yorkshire Ouse basin, NE England, UK. Hydrol. 1891. Parliament of Victoria, Melbourne (No.28).

Processes 13 (7), 1087–1102. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1085 Walter, R.C., Merrits, D.J., 2008. Natural streams and the legacy of water-powered

(199905)13:7<1087:AID-HYP791>3.0.CO ;2-T. mills. Science 319 (5861), 489–497. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/

Hughes, M.J., Phillips, N., 2001. Evolution of the victorian gold province: geological science.1151716.

and historical. Vict. Hist. J. 72 (1 and 2), 134–158. Wohl, E., 2004. Disconnected Rivers: Linking Rivers to Landscapes. Yale University

Humphries, P., Winemiller, K.O., 2008. Historical impacts on river fauna shifting Press, New Haven.

baselines, and challenges for restoration. Bioscience 59, 673–684. doi:http://dx. Woodland, J., 2014. Money Pits: British Mining Companies in the Californian and

doi.org/10.1525/bio.2009.59.8.9. Australian Gold Rushes of the 1850. Ashgate, Farnham, Surrey, UK.