Simberi Island is a

volcanic island Geologically, a high island or volcanic island is an island of volcanic origin. The term can be used to distinguish such islands from low islands, which are formed from sedimentation or the uplifting of coral reefs (which have often formed ...

in the

Tabar Group The Tabar Group is an island group in Papua New Guinea, located north of New Ireland. It is a part of the Bismarck Archipelago. The Tabar group consists of a short chain of three main islands - Tabar Island (a.k.a. Big Tabar) in the south, Tat ...

, in

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

New Ireland Province New Ireland Province, formerly New Mecklenburg (german: Neu-Mecklenburg), and Nova Hibernia, is the northeasternmost province of Papua New Guinea. Physical geography The largest island of the province is New Ireland. Also part of the province a ...

Geography and geology

Simberi is the northernmost and smallest of the three islands in the Tabar Group. The island is about 9 km long and 7 km wide and has an area of about 40 square kilometers. Its highest point in the highlands on the eastern side of the island is a 340 m eroded volcanic cone. The interior of the island is largely covered by rainforest. Most of the island's coast is steep and surrounded by a

fringing reef A fringing reef is one of the three main types of coral reef. It is distinguished from the other main types, barrier reefs and atolls, in that it has either an entirely shallow backreef zone (lagoon) or none at all. If a fringing reef grows dire ...

together with a series of small

islets An islet is a very small, often unnamed island. Most definitions are not precise, but some suggest that an islet has little or no vegetation and cannot support human habitation. It may be made of rock, sand and/or hard coral; may be permanen ...

. There is a woman shaped figure made by trees on the island and a

barrier reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. ...

about 10 km offshore from the west coast. A 2 km strait separates Simberi from

Tatau Island Tatau Island is an island of the Tabar Group of Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu ...

to the south west. Simberi island is a

potassium Potassium is the chemical element with the symbol K (from Neo-Latin '' kalium'') and atomic number19. Potassium is a silvery-white metal that is soft enough to be cut with a knife with little force. Potassium metal reacts rapidly with atmos ...

rich (high-K)

calc-alkaline The calc-alkaline magma series is one of two main subdivisions of the subalkaline magma series, the other subalkaline magma series being the tholeiitic series. A magma series is a series of compositions that describes the evolution of a mafic m ...

island arc Island arcs are long chains of active volcanoes with intense seismic activity found along convergent tectonic plate boundaries. Most island arcs originate on oceanic crust and have resulted from the descent of the lithosphere into the mantle alon ...

volcano, the oldest in the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togeth ...

Tabar-Lihir-Tanga-Feni (TLTF) volcanic arc that formed above a

subduction zone Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...

People

The population is about 1100 and made up of nine clans who live in small coastal villages mainly in the north and west. The local language is a Simberi dialect of Mandara (also known as Tabar),

ISO 639-3 ISO 639-3:2007, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages – Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages'', is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. It defines three-letter codes for ...

language code "tbf", an Austronesian language spoken on the Tabar Islands.

Transport

The island has an airport, Simberi Airport (

IATA airport code An IATA airport code, also known as an IATA location identifier, IATA station code, or simply a location identifier, is a three-character alphanumeric geocode designating many airports and metropolitan areas around the world, defined by the ...

"NIS"), on the south east coast.

Simberi Oxide Gold Project

St Barbara Limited St Barbara Limited is an Australian-based, Australian Securities Exchange-listed (ASX) gold producer and explorer. History The company was incorporated and listed in 1969 as Endeavour Oil and initially focused on mineral exploration and producti ...

, an Australian-based company, operate an open pit gold (and silver) mine called the ''Simberi Oxide Gold Project'' in the volcanic highlands on the eastern side of the island. The mine is wholly owned and operated by St Barbara Limited, who acquired the assets of Allied Gold, the previous operators of the Simberi mine, on 31 August 2012. Gold production started in February 2008. Mining was suspended in December 2009 after Allied Gold received a cease work order from the Mineral Resources Authority of Papua New Guinea because of local landholder issues. Mining has since recommenced. Seven gold deposits have been defined in mining lease 136 (ML 136), which covers the central and eastern portion of Simberi Island, and other prospects have been identified. The gold deposits occur mainly on ridge tops and are all within 2 to 3 km of each other. Sorowar in the north is the largest resource while Samat North, South and East to the south are relatively small but relatively high grade. Pigiput, Pigibo and Botlu South lie between the Sorowar and Samat areas and are of intermediate tonnage but at a grade similar to Sorowar. The western area of Simberi Island within exploration license EL 609 is largely unexplored. Reconnaissance exploration for both oxide and sulphide mineralisation is planned. As of June 2009, Allied reported that the total resources were 4.7 million

ounce The ounce () is any of several different units of mass, weight or volume and is derived almost unchanged from the , an Ancient Roman unit of measurement. The avoirdupois ounce (exactly ) is avoirdupois pound; this is the United States customa ...

s (Moz) gold, being oxide gold resources of 1.4 Moz and sulphide gold resources of 3.3 Moz together with 10.2 Moz silver. Ore is delivered to the processing facilities on the eastern coast near Pigiput Bay by a 2,665 m long RopeCon aerial conveyor that can deliver 600 tonnes of ore per hour. The process plant is a conventional carbon-in-leach (CIL) gold process plant capable of treating 2.2 million tonnes of ore per year. In September 2010, Allied announced that it planned to increase its gold production to 100,000 oz per year. The oxide processing circuit at the Simberi operation will be expanded to 3.5-million tonnes a year, by June 2013. Mine

tailings In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction ( gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that ove ...

are disposed of in the form of a slurry that has been pre-diluted with seawater using a deep sea tailings pipeline. The pipeline is 528 m long with the discharge point at a depth of 130 m. The tailings flow down a steep submarine slope and are deposited at a depth of more than 3 kilometers. Production for the period from 1 July 2009 to 30 June 2010 was 64,327 oz. In June 2009, Allied reported that the remaining mine life was estimated to be over 10 years. St Barbara Limited (Australia) acquired Allied in September 2012 and is the current owner of this mining operation. They are the largest employer on the island.

References

{{authority control Islands of Papua New Guinea Volcanoes of Papua New Guinea New Ireland Province