"PLUMBAGO" is an old word for the lead ores like GALENA. - Believe it or not, there is lead naturally in the earth of New Zealand and it was successfully mined in past times - particularly at the TUI Mine in Te Aroha .. an interesting NZ geological report linked below:
https://www.nzpam.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/doing-business/mineral-potential/zinc.pdf
"Plumbago" is also the name for blue flowered plants that are said to grow in lead containing soils .. and a species of butterly.
SULFUR .. some 11,000 tonnes of sulphur were mined historically on White Island (Whakaari) - an active volcano that has taken lives several times, most recently in 2019.
Lead, Zinc, and Silver, GOLD & Copper tend to be found together - and like Sulfur, are generally Volcanogenic - and NZ has a fair amount of volcanic activity around our islands eh. - Silver was commercially mined back in 1897 at TARAWERA, Preservation Inlet, Southland.
Silver Bullets - 10% lighter but harder than lead would have been fairly common (or lead-silver alloy) back in the good old days, as silver was sometimes regarded as a nuisence by gold miners - but then they'd have needed ammo for their firearms .. especially if there were vampires sniffing around.
- If you are interested in Saltpeter, Potasium Nitrate .. well you can brew your own by collecting bat shit from caves or by storing urine-rich excrements in heaps kept moist until it magically appears by efflorescence .. this would work better up around Auckland where they have more shit and rain eh.
It can be a bit dry Down South.
If you're curious about where you might find some STEEL down here .. No Problem as NZ STEEL in Waikato are busy sucking-up IRONSANDS and smelting it and churning out COLORSTEEL®. and other stuff.
Our Iron Sand (57% iron) is from the West Coast of the North Island - deposited by VOLCANIC activity from the TARANAKI region 2.5 Million years ago.
A lot of ironsand ore is exported by pumping it as a slurry to an off-shore terminal for shipping
So we do still smelt steel here? I thought it was all imported now.. That's good news that our steel industry is still in existence...we are going to need it more and more..... and the coke to make it work.
ReplyDeleteThe Greenies will have conniption fits, but it's cleaner to make it here than import inferior stuff from overseas made in less efficient and more polluting ways.
Kathryn - according to Google - NZ Steel produce 650,000 tonnes of steel per annum while 'Pacific Steel' recycle heaps of it for the benefit of "the woke Greenies" who lurk among the righteous ..
DeleteI wonder if/when the environmental fundamentalists will give up their utterly illogical "down" on lead. The "studies" that condemn it for projectiles i, to say the least, very questionable.
ReplyDelete