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BLASTING OUT: EXPLOSIVES PRACTICES IN QUEENSLAND METALLIFEROUS MINES, 1870–1920
Author(s) -
Wegner Jan Helen
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
australian economic history review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.493
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1467-8446
pISSN - 0004-8992
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8446.2010.00301.x
Subject(s) - explosive material , rock blasting , work (physics) , mining engineering , forensic engineering , engineering , geography , archaeology , mechanical engineering
The use of explosives in mines in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was notoriously unsafe. In Queensland's underground metalliferous mines, explosive practices could be dangerous not only because of the attitudes of miners and managers, but because of problems inherent to the technology, conditions underground, economic fluctuations, and the persistence of outmoded practices. Some limited specialisation of labour occurred in the interests of safety, and although newer technology had the potential to deskill the work of miners, these developments were quite dissimilar to the highly specialised work practices that were adopted for large‐scale mining in the United States during the same period.