Take archaeology. Just this year alone miners have proved invaluable to the science.
This is actually not that surprising given that mining allows a lot of earth to be uncovered. No archaeological operation could afford to shift so much soil on spec or dig down as deep without extremely good reason.
Of course the mining process is not what many archaeologists would have in mind when it comes to making their discoveries. They tend to prefer a softly, softly approach with trowels and small brushes – not a digging implement with a bucket big enough to fit a brass band. Actually, Supply Side believes that is a perfectly good place to put a brass band but that is a story for another time.
Brass band prejudices aside, astute surveyors and equipment operators have been at the forefront of some of the very interesting archaeological discoveries.
In May the Cerrejon thermal coal mine in northeast Colombia opened a window to the prehistoric past by producing the fossil remains of a gigantic coal turtle.
This particular mine has been the site of previous paleontological discoveries. These included super-sized crocodilians and a six metre, 1.1 tonne snake known as Titanoboa. Try sneaking that snake onto a plane.
The most recent discovery though was of a turtle that could grow to the size of a small car and didn’t mind snacking on passing crocodiles. The found fossils are estimated to be about 60 million years old.
One of the theories surrounding Carbonemys Confrinii’s size is that it grew as a defence to the giant crocodiles and snakes that lived in its neighbourhood.
More recently has been the uncovering of the remains of at least five woolly mammoths in Serbia.
These were uncovered by TPPs-OCMs Kostolac about 20 metres down its Kostolac brown coal open pit mine.
The discovery of a mammoth in this part of the world is rare and, reportedly, may allow scientists to better explain how the last ice age affected the Balkans.
Apparently a well-preserved skeleton of a much older mammoth belonging to a southern type was found at the same site in 2009. It was estimated to be 1 million years old.
On the environmental front, one of Supply Side’s favourite stories – albeit one that has no doubt been considerably embellished over the years – involves the creation of the Fortescue Metals Group’s operations.
One thing standing in the way of the miner was the threat its operations could pose to the pebble mound mouse.
This mouse was so rare, or so the story went, nobody had seen an example of it for years. Indeed, it was thought it could well be extinct.
FMG decided that it had to get to the bottom of this so it dispatched a naturalist to investigate.
Suffice it to say when the naturalist made camp early on in his expedition he was soon looking for a large stick to beat off all of the pebble mound mice that were trying to invade his tucker bag.
Miners are good at exploring very remote country and often provide insights into the unknown.
This is something that should be kept in mind when the next round of arguments about miners destroying the environment come up.
