Loolekop: The Story of Palabora Mining Company

Published by Jonathan Ball,1990, hardcover, illustrated, index, 154 pages, condition: new.

Laminated colour-illustrated unclipped dustjacket, blue cloth-boards with white lettering and logo to the spine, plain endpapers, b/w frontispiece illustration,[xii]/154 pp of prelims, text, glossary, bibliography and index, illustrated by 16 inserted pp of b/w photographs and 16 inserted pp of colour photographs and map and 2 pp of management charts in the text.

The Loolekop coppel orebody is being mined by the Palabora. Mining Company Limited by open pit methods. The orebody is situated four km. south of the town

Phalaborwa in the north-eastern Transvaal, Republic of South Africa; at latitude 23 °57 'S and longitude 31°WE. The distance by road from Johannesburg to

Phalaborwa is 550 km. The nearest harbour is Lourenco Marques, some 340 km. by rail, situated on the east coast of Southern Africa.

Recent archeological work seems to indicate that ancients recovered copper from the Loolekop orebody over one thousand years ago. Before modern mining

started many shallow workings were discovered in the orebody, indicating the areas where the ancients mined oxide ore which they smelted in small primitive clay

smelters in the vicinity of the orebody.