Books in Review King’s essays describe ore-genesis theory

The Rocks Speak, a recently published collection of essays by Haddon King, contains his recollections and musings over a long career in mineral exploration. He has visited and critically examined most, if not all, of the world’s major ore deposits. With a photographic memory aided by meticulous notes, he is able to perceive patterns and associations in ore deposits which speak to him in terms of genesis and localization.

His essays show his developing views on ore genesis during the early postwar years when he was up against the entrenched conviction that ores were hydrothermal replacements deposited from solutions emanating from great depth.

This concept was vigorously supported by the mineragraphic specialists who were able to discern paragenetic sequences of replacement and who were perturbed neither by the problem of space nor by lack of evidence of the fate of the replaced material. There ensued fairly bitter battles, the fight being not only against geological orthodox but also against the scorn of many mining engineers who in those years believed that geology could make no contribution either to ore finding or to mining operations.

The cat was finally thrown among the pigeons by a paper that was written jointly by Haddon King and Brendan Thomson in 1953 on the geology of the Broken Hill district. It was edited, ironically, by A.B. Edwards, one of the more trenchant opponents of the Haddon King thesis.

In this paper the authors expound the proposition that the ore minerals of the Broken Hill lode are an intrinsic part of the original sediments and, together with the sediments, have suffered metamorphism and tectonic folding. Furthermore, to exacerbate the heresy, they suggest that many of the so-called “igneous” rocks of the district are also of sedimentary origin. From this base, King goes on in his essays to suggest the many ways in which the concept that ores are a normal component of stratified sediments serves to explain the field observations and to provide sensible targets for exploration, needing only some additional environmental component to provide a locus for concentration.

The essays traverse the shortcomings of laboratory geology, the myopia resulting from over-reliance upon microscopy, the value of empirical observations in the field or in the mine even when scientific support is elusive, the role of deep crustal lineaments of localizing ores, the problems of appropriate ore reserve estimation, and so on. He is convinced that orthodox geology is still largely tradition-bound and irrational, and that most tertiary training courses still fail to present students with the appropriate mental attitudes. The lesson of his own experience is an emphatic one: “to question and question, and not be put off by academic or scientific disapproval.” (Reviewed by the Australian Mineral Foundation)

The Rocks Speak: Essays in Geology — Some Personal Responses of a Willing Listener. By Haddon King. Published by Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, 1989. (AusIMM monograph series; No. 15). 308 pages. A$45. (Australian agent: AMF Bookshop, 63 Conyngham St., Glenside SA 5065).