Question, surely, is why was mining permitted here at all? Because global miner Rio Tinto is a god in the Pilbara and does whatever it likes. It has wreaked massive destruction for decades, without recourse.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-26/rio-tinto-blast-destroys-area-with-ancient-aboriginal-heritage/12286652

It's your basic frontier mentality. This places is huge, what difference does it make what harm I do? Known Indigenous shelter with 20,000 years of habitation record? Who cares.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260741424_Aboriginal_Settlement_during_the_LGM_at_Brockman_Pilbara_Region_Western_Australia

Site seems to be about here btw -- I doubt keeping its exact location quiet matters much now that it has been blasted.

https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=4b8048fd-eb9a-4fba-acb2-bad058cfc8ab&cp=-22.599148~117.203577&lvl=13&style=h&v=2&sV=2&form=S00027

What is going on here, technically? The Pilbara is absolutely full of BIF, 'banded iron formation'. There is iron ore *everywhere*. So why not just go somewhere else?

Partly bloodymindedness. This is my mine, this is my mine plan, I'm the world's (...third) biggest miner, and I'll damn well do what I like.

Rio Tinto has mined actual river beds in the Pilbara, for decades, to obtain easy-dig, high value 'channel iron deposits'. Destruction, much?

Pannawonnica: That's shallow alluvial mining right up to the river banks boths sides; tailings dam top left.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Pannawonica+WA+6716/@-21.751859,116.2759394,2718a,35y,310.78h,46.52t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x2bf726a526d18dff:0x400f6382479cda0!8m2!3d-21.6386217!4d116.3218767

Why? Because you go where the easy, high-value ore is ... but that may not be what you think. Yes, ore grade, though that's not really it; high-grade deposits are everywhere. Yes, orebody accessibility (we like hillsides), thickness (avoid dilution, reduced processing).

But the big one is phosphorous. The market wants low phosphorous ore, and the miners go where that is, come what may and who gives a damn. Which is why Rio Tinto digs up river beds and rock shelters. Which is why BHP is 'digging to China' at Newman, when there's ore all about.

Although they dig plenty of 'all about' as well, and blend it with low-phosphorous Newman ore to meet grade and impurity targets. That used to include, joy-of-joys, 'scree ore', scraped off hillsides below cliff lines, because 'free dig', 'high quality', never-mind-the-wreckage.

Is way way past time these operations attracted some actual scrutiny.

One other thing. These are the most profitable bulk mining operations on Earth, bar exactly none. If we cannot rely on the big miners to behave themselves here, then where, when?

"I'm a global major with a reputation to protect; you don't need to worry about me." Oh yes we do, everywhere and always.

Here, last week. What is the mine plan here I wonder?

https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/sentinel-playground/?source=S2&lat=-22.591744965180354&lng=117.21742630004883&zoom=13&preset=1-NATURAL-COLOR&layers=B01,B02,B03&maxcc=20&gain=3.4&gamma=1.0&time=2019-11-01%7C2020-05-21&atmFilter=ATMCOR&showDates=true

It's drilled out down and across the creek to the west and down the slope to the south, so a pit expansion is planned in those directions. But this is never going to be a Newman-Whaleback style mega-pit; can tell by how close they've positioned the waste dump to the north.

Very large pits are atypical in the Pilbara. Most operations are smaller, shallower, often hillside pits in the 5-10 year life range. You work one out, then abandon it and move to the next, and the next, and the next. This pit barely existed five years ago.

...With rehab of course, but nothing elaborate. Don't go thinking pit backfilling ... dreaming. But are some not terrible efforts. It's the scale -- so many pits, so many waste dumps, at so many mining areas, and with vastly more to come.

Again, where is the scrutiny?

Seriously ... ghost bats ffs. This is extra-level stuff. https://twitter.com/Birds_Central/status/1265423495590080512?s=19

Your glorious global miner.

https://theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/27/a-sacred-site-showing-46000-years-of-continual-occupation-and-its-completely-legal-to-blow-it-up

"You with your skyscraper boardrooms full of Indigenous art, you can fund all the scholarships and Indigenous pathways to success that you want -- none of that changes that at the heart of what you do lies cold white disdain for anything other than profit."