Ore from Mount Painter in northern Flinders exploited 1910-32 for radium, with uranium not valued in that era
Camels, preferred to horses because of the rugged terrain and lack of water, being loaded at Mount Painter in the northern Flinders Ranges with radioactive ore to be treated at the plant (pictured in 1927) at Dry Creek, near Adelaide.
Mount Painter uranium deposits, part of what was later called Radium Ridge in South Australia’s northern Flinders Ranges in the Lake Frome area, followed the same early 20th Century pattern of exploitation as the ore at Radium Hill mine.
Uranium-bearing minerals were discovered at Mount Painter in the Radium Ridge region by G.A. Greenwood, son of a local pastoralist and prospector, in 1910. This discovery was exploited for radium by the Radium Extraction Company of South Australia Ltd. Many prominent locals from the nearby mining town of Leigh Creek bought shares in the company, in the spirit of the era’s mining boom.
The Radium Extraction Company opened up several other deposits during the next two years, the largest being the No. 6 workings near Mount Painter. Ore was shipped to Europe until the outbreak of war in 1914 and the company went into liquidation in 1917. Douglas Mawson had some uranium from the region shipped to France, where Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie was involved in radioactivity research.
The Mount Painter workings were reopened in 1923 by what became the Australian Radium Corporation. Lack of water prevented a leaching plant being built on site, and a small crushing and screening plant was unsatisfactory.
Camels were used in the rugged terrain to carry crude concentrate and hand-picked ore to less hilly country, where it was transferred to motor lorry and carted to the railway at Copley. From there, it was railed to the Dry Creek treatment plant.
Both Mount Painter and Radium Hill deposits were mined intermittently until the early 1930s, when mining ceased. Their minerals were processed for their radium content which commanded a high price for the use in medicine.
Uranium itself had little use at that point. Interest only increased after 1939 with the discovery of nuclear fission. The Australian Radium Corporation ceased operations in 1932.
