The first notice of the mine was 1900 when testing was being carried out to discover coal seams. Sometime between then and 1904 when the next source appears, a mine opened here.

John Ewing owned the mine in its developmental stage. It was offered to The Collie Coal Trust of W.A. Limited in 1901, with a condition extra money would be paid should a railway line arrive at the leases. Ewing was part of the State Government, and there was controversy over his efforts to get the government to pay for a railway line.

Early companies at the mine were the Cardiff Coal Company, which changed its named to the Collie Coal Company. By the 1920's, Amalgamated Collieries of W.A. Limited controlled the mine, until the company ended in 1960.

The early years of the mine was fraught with strikes, the company claiming 46 over a ten year period. There was also controversy over the quality of the coal being produced, and its suitability for use on the railways, although the mine was not alone with this criticism. The rest are production figures.

William Preston was instantly killed in 1908, when his head was crushed between a skip wagon and pit prop.

In 1947, there was a major collapse in the underground workings from the 270 foot level to the surface. Hundreds of tonnes of slurry flowed into the workings. No one was in the mine at the time. The mine workers blamed a programme of pillar extraction, and refused to go into the workings. There was some worry the mine may not re-open. Some pictures were found of operations in the early 1950's, but it is unlikely the mine ever reached the same level as before, and soon closed. Previously it had been producing 2000 tonnes of coal per day.

The mine continued largely uninterrupted (except for strikes) from 1900 until this event. Amalgamated Collieries ceased in 1960 after it lost contracts to supply the government with coal.

Cardiff is a small quiet hamlet, about 10 kilometres south-east of Collie. The head stone over the mine entrance is perched on a memorial next to the community hall. The town common contains some building foundations, and sunken earth, with a faded warning sign the ground could collapse at any moment.

Regions containing this locality

Australian Plate (Australia Plate)	Tectonic Plate
West Australian Element, Western Australia, Australia	Craton
Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia, Australia	Craton
Collie Basin, Western Australia, Australia	Basin

Regional Geology

This geological map and associated information on rock units at or nearby to the coordinates given for this locality is based on relatively small scale geological maps provided by various national Geological Surveys. This does not necessarily represent the complete geology at this locality but it gives a background for the region in which it is found.

Click on geological units on the map for more information. Click here to view full-screen map on Macrostrat.org

Neogene - Early Cretaceous 2.588 - 145 Ma ID: 913779

Nakina Formation Age: Phanerozoic (2.588 - 145 Ma) Stratigraphic Name: Nakina Formation Description: Weakly lithified claystone, conglomerate and sandstone in upward-fining cycle; cross-bedded, fluviatile sands. Comments: regolith; synthesis of multiple published descriptions Lithology: Regolith Reference: Raymond, O.L., Liu, S., Gallagher, R., Zhang, W., Highet, L.M. Surface Geology of Australia 1:1 million scale dataset 2012 edition. Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia). [5]

Neoarchean - Mesoarchean 2500 - 3200 Ma ID: 3189638

Archean crystalline metamorphic rocks Age: Archean (2500 - 3200 Ma) Comments: Yilgarn Craton Lithology: Amphibolite/granulite grade orthogneiss Reference: Chorlton, L.B. Generalized geology of the world: bedrock domains and major faults in GIS format: a small-scale world geology map with an extended geological attribute database. doi: 10.4095/223767. Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 5529. [154]

Data and map coding provided by Macrostrat.org, used under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License

References