In 1955, he was asked to lead a group of American oil explorers to Cape York Peninsula, Sir Maurice Mawby suggested he should also search other minerals such as phosphate or bauxite.
Prospects for oil seemed poor, but Evans did collect some samples of the reddish-brown pebbles on their way to the Weipa Mission Station, suspecting they might be contain bauxite.
[1][2] Sadly, the development of bauxite mining near Weipa along the coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria, led to massive dispossession of land, dislocation and great suffering by the Aboriginal inhabitants of the region.
Evans was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1965 Queen's Birthday Honours,[4] for his persistence and skill in exploration.
He retired in 1974, but, in 1988 he was awarded the President's Medal from the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, for his contribution to early oil and gas exploration in Australia, and for his recognition of the significance of the Weipa bauxite deposits.