Above & Below

$20.00

This is a general overview of the Department of Mine and Energy of South Australia over the past 50 years. This book sets the scene and provides the story of the Mines Department in context of South Australia’s history.

Together with its predecessor, In Search of Mineral Wealth, this book is a recognition of the importance of the mining and petroleum industries to South Australia and of the wealth and material prosperity they have generated in and for the State.

Hard cover book with 655 pages.

A good book for your library shelf.

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Description

Above and Below the South Australian Department of Mines and Energy 1944-1994.

This hard covered book is a bargain, containing 655 pages which includes the index and is a glossy page publication.

Above and Below is the product of a two-fold proposal of the Department of Mines and Energy to publish a continuation of its history in the period since 1944 and to have this history recorded from a perspective outside the Department. Together with its predecessor, In Search of Mineral Wealth, this book is a recognition of the importance of the mining and petroleum industries to South Australia and the wealth and material prosperity they have generated in and for the State.

This general overview of the activities of the Department of Mines and Energy over the past fifty years cannot, by its very nature, cover all aspects in the detail that many of them deserve. Above and Below sets the scene and provides the story of the Department in the context of the State’s history. Numerous subjects of significance deserve to be examined further: uranium mining at Radium Hill, the Olympic Dam Project at Roxby Downs, the Cooper Basin’s oil and gas resources, the development of geology as a science within the Department and in South Australia, South Australia’s mining history and mineral economics since 1836, companies and organisations such as Santos, Geosurveys, the Electricity Trust of South Australia, Amdel, the Australian Mineral Foundation, the South Australian Oil and Gas Corporation (now Sagasco Resources) and the Pipelines Authority of South Australia, modern legislative developments and the role of the labour force and trades unions. Many stories remain to be recorded, documented and preserved.

In particular, the contributions of individuals to South Australian and Australian geology and mining could be acknowledged more widely. Twentieth century figures include Essington Lewis, Sir Douglas Mawson, Dr Cecil Madigan, Robert Lockhart Jack, Sir Ben Dickinson, Professor Eric Rudd, Dr Nell Ludbrook, Professor Martin Glaessner, Sir Arvi Parbo and Dr Reg Sprigg, whose reputations were all established in part through their work or training in South Australia. Individuals from more recent times also need to be assessed in context.

In Search of Mineral Wealth detailed the Department’s origins and its first fifty years of operations and sought to explain the hows and whys, as well as describing the developments. That story closed in 1944 when Keith Ward, the second Government Geologist (from 1912) and the first Director of Mines (from 1916), retired. The Department was then on the verge of an exciting phase and the end of World War 11 was eagerly anticipated. The book was published to recognise a centenary, that of the Geological Survey of South Australia in 1982. For some this was the centenary of the Department: one school of thought maintains that the Survey is (and has been) the Department.

Additional information

Weight 1.575 kg
Dimensions 25.8 × 18.5 × .3 cm