Latrobe Valley - Victoria.
Location:
The coal mines associated with the power station are located just east of Moe in the Latrobe Valley. 38° 15' S 146° 20' E
Photograph:
Scale 1:30,000 Date 20-5-93
Background Information:
This area is located 140 south east of Melbourne and has one of the greatest known continuous occurrence of brown coal in the world. The main deposit lies between Moe and Rosedale, just to the south of the Latrobe River. It is 65 km long and between 8 and 30 km wide. Here 22,000 million tonnes of brown coal workable by open cut methods have been proven and there are other areas farther south and also some to the west of Melbourne. The coal ranges in age from 20 to 50 million years. It has a high moisture content (58 - 67% water), which renders it unsuitable for smelting purposes. However, it is suitable for use in industrial boilers, for the production of briquettes, for conversion to electricity, for gasification and for the manufacture of high-grade metallurgical coke. A feature of the deposit is its remarkable thickness. At Yallourn the seam is on average 60 m thick and is covered by 12 m of overburden. At Morwell the seam is between 100 and 150 m thick. The coal is scooped up by buckets of immense dredgers working in open cuts and loaded into railway trucks. One of these dredgers is the largest of its kind in the world weighing 2200 tonnes and can excavate 1750 tonnes of coal in an hour.