Iron Blow

Iron Blow was the site of the earliest major mining venture at Mount Lyell on the west coast of Tasmania, Australia in 1883.

Geoffrey Blainey describes the appearance prior to its being mined:[1] They (Those mentioned above) examined the strange formation.

It jutted twenty or thirty feet above the surface and was split by deep cracks and crevices as if a great explosion had fractured the rock and flung slabs far down the hill...(they)... had seen no similar outcrop in their brief mining experience.

The first shot on the site was in January 1884 - and most local prospectors were camped in the Linda Valley to the east of the Mount Owen - Mount Lyell ridge - also known as Philosophers Ridge The townsite of Penghana, the present site of Queenstown - to the west was still thick rainforest.

[3] The cessation of the Iron Blow mining was also linked in with the demise of the Mount Lyell pyritic smelting - the cessation of Robert Carl Sticht's smelters and methods.