<P> While iron ore deposits were known , like the Mount Whaleback deposit discovered in 1957 by Stan Hilditch , it was not until 1960 , when the Australian Government lifted the embargo on iron ore exports it had put in place because of concerns the mineral was in short supply , that mining began in earnest . Up until the mid-1960s , iron ore production in Western Australia , and Australia as a whole , was negligible , in the range of less than 10 million tons a year . By the mid-1970s , this figure had reached 100 million tonnes , with the majority coming from Western Australia . Production slightly declined in the 1980s but it improved in the 1990s , reaching 150 million tonnes for the country by 1997 and 200 million tonnes by 2003 . </P>
where does iron ore come from in australia
the majority coming from Western Australia