The majority of Australia's reserves are of the sulphide mineral and most production comes from Western Australia. The largest use of nickel is in the production of high strength steels and stainless steel, the latter have an enormous range of applications, from cutlery and kitchenware, to surgical equipment, truck bodies and rail wagons. The ultimate source of most quartz is small crystals or grains within granitic rocks. Veins of quartz often radiate out for many kilometres from granite intrusions and these may contain other minerals, such as gold, tungsten, molybdenum and feldspar. Due to its extreme hardness and resistance to weathering, quartz grains can be carried long distances by rivers and streams, to be redeposited and compacted over geological time, forming large beds of sandstone.
Most quartz is impure, containing traces of iron and other minerals and has little value.
However, pure silica has a large and growing range of uses. The longest standing and largest use is in the manufacture of glass and most glass is made from high grade silica sand deposits in Victoria, various locations along the NSW coast and at Cape Flattery in northern Queensland. High grade silica for industrial uses is mined from quartz veins in the New England district. Statistically, the Rare Earths are more abundant than lead or silver, but it was not until the late 1950s that the technology was developed to separate them commercially from their ores. The Rare earths are a group of metals belonging to the Lanthanide series and include lanthanum, cerium, yttrium, promethium and europium.