Nauru phosphate
Fosfato de Nauru
- Date
- 1900 · confidence high
- Place
- Nauru Island, Nauru
- Credited to
- Albert Ellis (Pacific Islands Company)
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Albert Ellis identified in 1900 that a rock on the island was high-grade phosphate, leading to mass mining for Australian and New Zealand fertilisers. Extraction stripped much of the island.
The anecdote that a rock used as a doorstop revealed the phosphate is popular and probably apocryphal; what is documented is Ellis's analysis in 1900.
What it led to
- large-scale mining for Australian and New Zealand fertilisers
- temporary wealth and ecological and economic collapse of Nauru
- litigation over environmental reparation