Historical resources

Fire investigation team wearing Proto breathing apparatus at the C.S.A. Mine near Cobar in 1920. L to R, A. J. Julius - Mine manager, Gwyder Whalen - surveyor & Bob Pivetta - underground foreman.

The department has a number of resources that provide historical information on Minerals & Petroleum activities in NSW.

Heritage maps 

The department’s collection of heritage geological maps is in the process of being catalogued, conserved, scanned and archived. In the future high quality copies of these maps will also be available for purchase.

A unique collection of geologically notated parish maps is also being captured and a small sample is provided. 

Minerals industry historic photo collection

NSW Department of Primary Industries holds a significant heritage collection of images documenting the activities of the department of mineral resources and the mining industry from the late 1800s to the present.

The images range across geological localities, geologists and other staff at work, mining localities, specimens from the economic rock & mineral collection, micrographs and illustrations used in technical presentations.

The collection is housed in the department’s Minerals Division office in Maitland in the Hunter Valley of NSW.

With a prior appointment, researchers may conduct their own search of this collection on-site. DPI staff may also carry out searches at a cost of of $30 per hour or part thereof for this service.

As with other parts of the department’s image collection, there is a standard charge of $150 for reproduction (including a publication quality scan) for each image This is reduced to $100 per image for requests of 5 or more images.

Acknowledgement of the source of the images is required and copyright remains with the State of NSW through the NSW Department of Primary Industries.

Contact David Barnes on 4931 6494 or dave.barnes@dpi.nsw.gov.au for more information on this collection.

Heritage primefacts

The department is currently in the process of updating heritage Minfact information sheets and converting them to Primefacts.