Coober Pedy Tailings
In the heart of South Australia, halfway between Alice Springs and Adelaide lies the icon mining landscape of Coober Pedy. The population of Coober Pedy exploded after the discovery of opals in 1915 and the town still supplies most of the world gem-quality opals used in jewellery.
There are more than 250,000 mine shaft entrances because of a law regulating large-scale mining, so speculators worked around the law by opening multiple entrances. Tailings are the product left over in a mining operation after the valuable ore has been separated out and claimed.
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