Rivers of Gold by Professor Susan Lawrence

One legacy of the gold mining era was the massive amounts of tailings (sludge) that swept across many floodplains and was a big issue for farmers in Victoria. The original braided floodplains and chains of ponds, and the pastures and crops on this most fertile land, were replaced by infertile sludge that filled in the valleys then rapidly eroded into incised creeks with water tables well below the surface.