Big Bsip Bauxite Discovery
p. 149 · Read in the full issue
A large bauxite deposit has been discovered on Kolombangara Island, an extinct volcano, in the New Georgia Group of the British Solomons.
The BSIP Department of Geological Surveys will carry out a drilling programme to assess its economic potential, and meanwhile Kolombangara will be closed to prospecting.
A mining ordinance excluding the island from prospecting for one year was issued in Honiara on July 18.
It has been stated unofficially in Honiara that the deposit of bauxite—the raw material for aluminium—is estimated to be as large as the one at Weipa on Cape York, Queensland, which has reserves of 2,000 million tons.
Mr. J. C. Grover, chief of the Department of Geological Surveys, emphasised that the economic potential of the bauxite would only be known after complete drilling and mineralogical examination of the samples had been done.
Mr. Grover said the discovery was first made by the Royal Society expedition which visited the Solomons last year and subsequently confirmed by a search of geological records in London.