About Quarry

Quarry

Overview

Quarry is Australia's business-to-business magazine for the quarrying and extractive industries, and the official journal of the Institute of Quarrying Australia (IQA). Published monthly from Melbourne by Prime Creative Media in partnership with the IQA, it covers the people, plant, projects and regulation of the sector that produces the crushed rock, sand, gravel and other construction materials on which Australian infrastructure depends.

The magazine is aimed squarely at decision-makers: quarry operators, recyclers and other members of the extractive industries, together with the suppliers who sell and specify quarrying plant and equipment. Its publisher describes it as a highly targeted, "waste free" medium, distributed nationally to all members of the IQA and to individual paid subscribers, and direct-mailed to a database of industry suppliers and other relevant professionals. A directory listing of the title records the publisher's figure of more than 10,300 print readers.

Quarry's remit spans the full operating life of a quarry — from geology, drilling and blasting through crushing, screening and conveying to maintenance, recycling, safety and business management — and it carries that coverage across a monthly print and digital magazine, a news website and an online marketplace for used equipment.

History

Quarry's institutional roots lie in the Institute of Quarrying, founded in Wales in 1917 as a professional association for quarry managers, and in the Institute's Australian arm: the first organised IQ activity outside the United Kingdom took place in Sydney in 1948, and in 1961 the Australian branch was formed into a Division with branches in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland. The Australian institute — today's IQA — is the peak body for the quarries and construction-materials sector, supporting more than 1,750 members, by its own account, and affiliated with sister institutes in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, South Africa, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

As the IQA's official journal, Quarry has long served as the Australian industry's magazine of record; its website archive preserves editorials going back well over a decade, including pieces signed by former editor Damian Christie. In its current era the title is produced by Prime Creative Media, the Melbourne-based B2B publisher founded in 2002, working in partnership with the IQA.

The partnership has had practical as well as editorial consequences. When Prime Creative Media became the first Australian publisher to send paper-wrapped magazines at scale — replacing plastic wrap in magazine mailings, in partnership with its printer — Quarry was the title through which the change was reported and showcased. More recently, Prime Creative Media's international subsidiary, Prime Global Publishing, acquired the UK-based Aggregates Business Europe and Aggregates Business International titles, with the company citing its record of growing Australia's national quarrying sector through Quarry Magazine as the foundation for the expansion. Prime Creative Media's chief executive, John Murphy, has described the quarrying and aggregates sector as the backbone of infrastructure development.

Content and Coverage

Quarry's editorial structure, visible on its website, is organised into news, product and operations coverage, and in-depth features. News coverage includes general industry news, IQA news, regulation news and "People on the Move" appointments. Its operations coverage is granular and practical, divided into attachments, recycling, maintenance, conveying, sand processing, drill and blast, mobile plant, load and haul, and screens, feeders and crushing. In-depth coverage takes in safety, training, business management, case studies, opinion and a "Geology Talk" strand.

Recent issues show the mix in practice. The October 2026 edition, released on 12 October 2026, put Kleemann, the Wirtgen Group's crushing and screening brand, on its cover and drew contributions from across the industry, including Heidelberg Materials Australia, Komatsu Australia, Viva Energy Australia, Onetrak, CEA, SLR Consulting and Curtin University, alongside the IQA itself. Website features in the same period ranged from a Komatsu excavator delivery to the historic Mount Morgan mine site in Queensland, to Boral's introduction of automated embodied-carbon reporting for concrete customers — an example of the sustainability and emissions themes now running through the sector.

The magazine also champions the industry's workforce campaigns, covering the IQA's "That's Solid" initiative, which uses branded vehicles, email signatures and social sharing to present quarrying as a modern, technology-driven career to young people — a response to an ageing workforce and competition for skilled labour from the mining industry.

Audience and Reach

Quarry's audience is the Australian extractive industry itself: quarry owners and operators, site and operations managers, engineers and geologists, recyclers, and the equipment manufacturers, dealers and service companies that supply them. Distribution is built into the industry's professional structure — every IQA member receives the magazine — supplemented by paid subscriptions and direct mail to supplier and professional databases. The publisher's listed figure of more than 10,300 print readers is its own measure, not an independent audit, and is cited here on that basis.

The title's LinkedIn page, which lists its headquarters as South Melbourne, Victoria, had roughly 9,000 followers in October 2026, reflecting the professional network around the magazine. Through the IQA, the magazine is also connected to a wider international community of quarrying institutes, and its publisher's acquisition of the UK Aggregates Business titles has extended the group's aggregates coverage to European and international markets.

Digital Presence

Quarry's website, quarrymagazine.com, publishes industry news, features and product coverage continuously between monthly issues, organised under the same news, operations and in-depth categories as the print title, together with management, products, events and education sections and a "Latest Reviews" strand, and offers an email newsletter. The site also hosts a supplier directory and an integrated equipment marketplace carrying live classified listings for used machinery — dozers, excavators, loaders and other plant advertised by dealers across Australia — reflecting the same listings engine its publisher operates across several trade titles.

The magazine maintains an active LinkedIn presence, used to announce new editions — including the October 2026 issue — and to share stories between issues. Digital editions of the magazine are also distributed through the publisher's channels, and Prime Creative Media publishes its titles, Quarry among them, in digital replica form.

Ownership and Organisation

Quarry is published by Prime Creative Media, an independently owned, Melbourne-based business-to-business media and marketing company established in 2002, which describes itself as Australia's largest B2B publisher. The magazine is produced in partnership with the Institute of Quarrying Australia, whose official journal it is; the IQA is the sector's peak professional body, led from its national office and supporting members through state branches, the Women in Quarries initiative and a Young Member Network.

Prime Creative Media's chief executive is John Murphy. The Quarry editorial operation sits within the publisher's infrastructure and industrial portfolio, alongside titles such as Roads & Infrastructure, Inside Construction, Cranes & Lifting Magazine and Infrastructure Magazine, and events including the Converge expo for the municipal works, civil and commercial construction sectors. The group's international arm, Prime Global Publishing, publishes the Aggregates Business titles in the United Kingdom.

Contact and Availability

Quarry is published monthly in print and digital editions. Subscriptions are available to IQA members as part of membership and to other readers by paid subscription arranged through the magazine's website, quarrymagazine.com, which also carries the title's news service, supplier directory and equipment listings, and accepts newsletter sign-ups. The Institute of Quarrying Australia can be contacted through quarry.com.au. Advertising and editorial enquiries for the magazine are handled through Prime Creative Media in Melbourne.