Geological Survey of Victoria maps 200,000 unrecorded gold rush mining features

By Alice Walker – ABC News

Hidden beneath the ground throughout regional Victoria are relics of the state’s gold rush past.

In July 1851, the state officially separated from New South Wales, and in the same month its first gold discovery was announced, leading to a rapid expansion as a flood of immigrants arrived to seek their fortune.

That transformation, and the continued hunt for gold over the past 175 years, has left many physical remains in the landscape, which the state government has been attempting to map more accurately.