Beverley is what geologists call a palaeochannel deposit. The uranium, mostly in the mineral coffinite, sits in loose sands within the buried channel of an ancient river, 100 to 150 metres below the surface, trapped between impermeable layers of rock. Rather than excavate it, operators drill boreholes and pump down a mildly acidic, oxygen-rich solution that dissolves the uranium underground. The uranium-laden liquid is then drawn back up through other wells to a processing plant. The technique works only where the geology cooperates: a porous ore body sealed top and bottom. The deposit is estimated to hold around 21,000 tonnes of uranium oxide, enough for a mine life projected at 15 to 30 years. The mine is operated by Adelaide-based Heathgate Resources, a subsidiary of the American firm General Atomics.

Supporters argue in-situ leaching leaves a far smaller footprint than conventional mining: no open pit, no rock waste, less dust. Critics counter that injecting acid into an aquifer carries its own risks, and that what happens underground is hard to see and harder to undo. The record gives both sides material. Between 1998 and 2007, Heathgate reported 57 spill incidents to South Australia's mining regulator. The mine draws on the same arid landscape that the region's Aboriginal peoples and conservationists have long fought to protect, and Beverley sits close to the boundary of the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary, where uranium prospecting was banned outright in 2011 after a sustained public campaign. The contrast is stark: extraction on one side of a line, permanent protection on the other.

In May 2000, opponents of the mine gathered to protest, and what happened next would take a decade to resolve in court. Ten protesters, the Supreme Court of South Australia eventually found, were subjected to unnecessary force, including batons and capsicum spray. Nine adults were locked inside a shipping container; one detainee, a cameraman, said he was held there for three hours. In April 2010, after the state government declined to settle, Justice Timothy Anderson awarded the plaintiffs $724,550, condemning their treatment as 'degrading' and a breach of human rights. He rebuked senior politicians for inflammatory comments, including a treasurer who had dismissed the protesters as 'a bunch of feral protesters.' One plaintiff, Lucinda White, said afterward she was stunned such a thing could happen in South Australia. The case became a landmark on the limits of policing protest.

Beverley did not stay alone for long. In 2005, the Four Mile uranium deposit was found just to the north-west, jointly held by a Heathgate subsidiary and Alliance Resources, and approved for development in 2009, with final processing planned at the Beverley plant. Further deposits at Beverley North were discovered in 2009 and approved for mining in 2011. Together they mark this stretch of the Frome embayment as one of Australia's significant uranium provinces, its riches locked in buried riverbeds laid down long before any human walked the land. Beverley remains a place where two visions of the outback meet and refuse to merge: one that sees value buried beneath the plain, and one that sees value in leaving the plain alone.