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Tuesday, 29th November 2005 (3840 views)

The city of Ballarat is to provide the gold for the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games medals, reports ABC News.

Victorian premier Steve Brack made the announcement at the 35th anniversary of Sovereign Hill, a museum displaying gold-related paraphernalia.

During the celebrations, Sovereign Hill's Ray Pezutti explained how gold bullion was produced in the gold rush days of the 1800s.

Gold was discovered in the area in 1851 and by 1853 over 20,000 miners were working on the area.

The most famous discovery in the area was that of the Welcome Nugget, which reportedly weighed 68,956 grams 68,272 of which were pure gold.

Today Ballarat Goldfields is active in the area and calculates that up to 50 per cent of the total gold content in the Ballarat East ore deposits is larger in size than 1.2 mm. It will mine the gold used to produce the medals.

 

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