AUSTRALIA COCKATOO ISLAND

Cockatoo Island is an island in the Buccaneer Archipelago off the coast of Western Australia near the town of Broome.

Iron ore mining began at Cockatoo Island in 1951. BHP (now BHP Billiton) operated the mine in the early 1950s and ran it as a complete town site until 1984 when the ore body had been mined to sea level. HWE Mining and Portman Mining Ltd re-opened operations in the 1990s by first retreating old BHP dumps, then forming a seaform and commencing mining below sea level.