SOME OF THE GOLD COASTS SAND MINING PAST LAYS IN SCRAP

Currumbin Minerals Old Scrap Remnants

I love the past when it reveals itself.
 Sandmining operations ran for many years across many southern Gold Coast beaches even when it was fast becoming a tourist destination. Today in the Currumbin Industrial Area large broken and rusted clumps of scrap metal and equipment lay over the grounds of land owned by the Currumbin Minerals Company, the original company of the Neumanns Organisation.

                                      
Old sand mining equipment lays across Currumbin industrial land. Scrap dealers can only lick their lips and hope that one day they may get their hands on some of it.

 Neumanns's today has other industrial practices such as steel supplies, civil construction and concrete manufacturing but still continues to produce sand products for the construction industry. From its beginnings as The Beach Sand Mining Company and then to become Currumbin Minerals the company  mined the beaches for minerals in the rich sands of the Gold Coast with several other sand mining companies. These companies worked hard to meet steep demands for zircon, rutile, ilmenite and other minerals for titanium production and many other applications.
Sand mining changed the shape of the Gold Coast coastline with its work using local natural resources such as sand dunes and coastal lagoons. The mining companies often left the land flat and level along the beach fronts to prepare for future development much to the approval of council.

 
Today beaches struggle to recover from cyclones and tropical storms and need constant sand replenishment from the dredging and pumping from nearby rivers and creeks. Gold Coast beaches now have light fine sands that are all yellow without the black weighted mineral. The heavy original mineral rich sands that may have assisted to hold the coast together  have been replaced by constant expensive Gold Coast City sand replenishment, maintenance programs. Historical sand mining has been proven to be one of the factors for the fragile state of today's Gold Coast beaches. In the  research to write this blog I couldn't find specific evidence that the  removal of heavy minerals from beach sands contributed to erosion. However there was plenty of evidence from journals and government documents that found the dredging and removal of sands and altering natural coastline structure did contribute significantly to coastal destabilisation.