Marie Curie catalyst for Mount Painter radium and uranium mining from 1910 in Flinders Ranges, South Australia
Radium's discoverer Marie Curie gave Adelaide University geology profesessor Douglas Mawson the electroscope he used in 1910 to confirm radium in ore found at Mount Painter in South Australia's northern Flinders Ranges. At right: South Australian artist Max Ragless's image of Mount Painter uranium mine during World War II.
Max Regless images courtesy Australian War Memorial
Marie Curie was a catalyst for Mount Painter becoming the peak of the long nuclear history of the South Australia’s Flinders Ranges from 1899 to 1865.
The first South Australian specimens of radium were found around Mount Painter in 1899 – a year after radium (found in pitchblende with uranium) had been first revealed by Polish scientist Curie and her French husband Pierre. W.B. Greenwood, a keen amateur geologist of Umberatana station in the northern Flinders Ranges, who was employed by the South Australian government, found what turned out to be radium around Mount Painter. But because government geologist Henry Brown was away of stress leave of absence when Greenwood's specimens arrived, they somehow went missing. Greenwood sent more specimens in 1910 but Brown had his usual cautious regard to their value.
Adelaide University’s new geology professor Douglas Mawson was more optimistic and offered to analyse Greenwood's ore specimens. Mawson had recently visited Madame Curie in Paris where she pleaded with him to look for radium in Australia. She also gave him one of the two gold-leaf electroscopes she'd made to identify radium. He used the electropscope on Greenwood’s ore specimens and found they contained radium. He promptly sent his brightest geology student, “Archie” Broughton, to Mount Painter to examine the site and confirm the find.
The Radium Extraction Company of South Australia was formed by November 1910, followed by the Mount Painter Proprietary Co. Ltd and Mount Painter East Prospecting Syndicate. The South Australian government helped the,ining companies by sinking water well and, in 1911, Brown visited Mount Painter. This led to his report The occurrence of uranium (radioactive) ores and other rare metals and minerals in South Australia that generated big interest in radium.
Private companies took on the development work for mining Mount Painter with the government involved by buildinga road from Umberatana to the mines and it sank wells to water the animals hauling the ore out. The ore carters reportedly didn't need lanterns to show the road out at night, because so much uranium had spilled along the road's side that it lit their way radioactively. Trains took the ore to Dry Creek, near Adelaide, to the refining plant.
Other severe problems – remoteness, searing summers and droughts – meant mining companies sometimes collapsed or shut down. The 1930s Depression and drought hit Mt Painter mines extra hard. But World War II brought change with the Allies' desperate search across the world for sources of uranium for their nuclear bombs.
A combined United States of America, British and Australian force of scientists, engineers and miliary personnel explored the Mount Painter area far more thoroughly with whole area was under high security. A road was blasted from the eastern plain through the East Painter Gorge and bore sunk at its mouth for water. A village of permanent buildings and tents was set up at East Painter.
Mining at Mount Painter and East Painter continued well after World War II but, in 1950, it was decided to mine uranium more easily at Radium Hill, southeast of Yunta, instead of in the Flinders Ranges. Mount Painter and East Painter workings weren't finally closed until 1965.
