Hamersley Range
The Hamersley Range is a mountainous region of the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The range was named on 12 June 1861 by explorer Francis Thomas Gregory after Edward Hamersley, a prominent promoter of his exploration expedition to the northwest.
The range is one of the oldest mountain ranges on Earth and primarily consists of ancient rock formations, including banded iron formations, that are about 2.5 billion years old. The Pilbara Craton, which underlies the Hamersley Range, dates back to around 3.4 billion years, but the range itself is younger than that. The deformation that began uplift of the region and created the tightly folded rocks of the range began around 2.2 billion years ago, during the Ophthalmia Orogeny. This would make it approximately the 6th oldest mountain range in the world.
Karijini National Park lies within the range.
History
The traditional Aboriginal owners of the area that the range runs through are the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura peoples.In 1999 a small range within the Hamersley was named the Hancock Range after the Hancock family, who were pioneers in the area. The Hancock range is east of Karijini National Park in a region of broad valleys and peaks that rise to almost. The Hancock Range is close to Mulga Downs Station, a property owned by the Hancock family and where Lang Hancock is buried.
Geography
The range runs from the Fortescue River in the northeast, to the south. The range contains Western Australia's highest point, Mount Meharry, which reaches approximately AHD. There are many extensively eroded gorges, such as Wittenoom Gorge. The twenty highest peaks in Western Australia are in the Hamersley Range. Peaks in the range include Mount Bruce, Mount Nameless/Jarndunmunha, Mount Reeder Nichols, Mount Samson, Mount Truchanas and Mount Tom Price.Karijini National Park, one of Australia's largest national parks, is centred in the range.
Mining
The range contains large deposits of iron ore, producing a large proportion of Australia's iron ore exports. It is predominately associated with banded iron formation.Western Australia's major iron producers have mines, communities and railways that occur along the range. Rio Tinto operates several iron ore mines within the range, including Mount Tom Price, Marandoo, Brockman, Channar, West Angelas, Mesa A mine, and Paraburdoo. Over of iron ore is removed from the range every year.
Existence of crocidolite in the Hamersley Range has been known since 1915. In 1917 crocidolite was discovered at Wittenoom, it was mined from the 1930s and was discontinued in 1966 because of unprofitable production costs leaving behind the largest contaminated site in the southern hemisphere, an area nearly the size of the Chernobyl exclusion zone area. Wittenoom was Australia's only blue asbestos mining town.