Extracting and using resources
Australia is built on extraordinary natural wealth — sun, water and farmland that renew, and minerals and fossil fuels that don\'t. The iron ore that earns more than any other export is over two billion years old, made of rust from Earth\'s first breath of oxygen — and once it\'s mined, it\'s gone for good. So this chapter asks not only how we get resources out of the ground, but the mark we leave doing it (our ecological footprint), how we repair it, and whose Country we dig.
The interactive book above is the lesson. What follows is a plain recap you can revise from, plus the sources and how this maps to the syllabus.
Renewable, non-renewable, and the footprint
Renewable resources replenish if managed — Australia\'s solar and wind, water (Murray–Darling), and agriculture (terrestrial and aquatic). Non-renewable resources — Pilbara iron, Hunter/Bowen coal, offshore gas — formed over millions of years and are gone once used. The ecological footprint is the extent of impact from extracting, using and disposing of them — the measure the whole module turns on.
Extraction methods and their impacts
Open-pit mining works shallow ore (most Pilbara iron, Hunter coal) — efficient but strips the surface. Underground mining reaches deeper ore with less surface damage, but risks subsidence. Drilling (onshore and offshore) taps oil, gas and water, risking spills and leaks. Every method can damage Aboriginal cultural sites — a central concern, not an afterthought.
Reclamation, and traditional owners
Reclamation (rehabilitation) reshapes land, replaces topsoil, revegetates and manages water and acid mine drainage — required by law in Australia, and genuinely useful, but unable to rebuild complex ecosystems or irreplaceable cultural sites. Traditional owners hold rights under native title and heritage law to be consulted and to negotiate; genuine involvement means real consent and benefit-sharing. The 2020 destruction of the ~46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge shelters showed the cost of failing to protect significant sites.
Case study: Pilbara iron ore
Australia\'s top export comes from banded iron formations over two billion years old (a callback to Module 5), open-pit mined in the Pilbara, railed and shipped to make steel. As a non-renewable resource it cannot be extracted forever, but its extraction and use can be made more sustainable — reducing the footprint, rehabilitating land, protecting cultural sites, partnering with traditional owners, and moving toward lower-carbon "green" steel.
For HSC students
This powerbook covers the Using Australia\'s Natural Resources thread of Module 8 (Resource Management), framed by the inquiry question how are Australia\'s natural resources extracted, used and managed? Working through it, you should be able to:
- identify Australian renewable resources and their locations — agricultural (terrestrial and aquatic), water and energy sources;
- investigate how mining sites affect the environment, including Aboriginal cultural sites, and reclamation after mining ceases — open-pit, underground, and onshore and offshore drilling;
- investigate the involvement of traditional owners in planning, mining practice and land restoration;
- prepare a case study of an important Australian resource — how it is found, extracted, used and managed, whether it can be used sustainably, and its past, present and future importance.
The syllabus lists resources and case-study options "including but not limited to", so the iron-ore case study here is one worked example among several you could choose. This chapter opens Module 8; the next covers managing waste. Explanations here are original and are a study aid, not a copy of the syllabus.
Sources
- Geoscience Australia — Australia\'s renewable and non-renewable resources, their distribution and extraction.
- Published geoscience on banded iron formations and the Great Oxidation Event as the origin of Pilbara iron ore.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics / industry data — iron ore as Australia\'s leading export and its uses in steelmaking.
- State mine-rehabilitation frameworks and research on reclamation, revegetation and acid mine drainage.
- The 2020 Parliamentary inquiry into the destruction of the Juukan Gorge rock shelters — traditional-owner heritage, consent and reform.
- NSW NESA Earth and Environmental Science Stage 6 Syllabus (2017) — used only to scope the Module 8 content; explanations above are original.
A resource is never just what we take — it is the hole left behind, the Country it came from, and the people whose say it was. Managing it well means weighing all three, not only the tonnes.