But it was not just resources in a slump; it was red across all the cyclical sectors.
IG Markets research analyst Ben Potter told the Dow Jones newswire there was a lot of selling in the United States overnight.
“Everyone's been calling for a pull-back but I think the volume and speed that this is occurring may be catching a few people by surprise,” he said.
“There's a lot of selling and it's on very, very good volume.”
By the close of the session, the benchmark S&P-ASX 200 had declined 2.27% to 4578.8 points.
Base metals also weighed heavily on resources.
Copper shed another 2.3% to $US6404 per tonne. Nickel slumped 4.6% to $17,723/t. Tin fell 6.5% to $14,780/t and zinc wiped off 5.39% to $2164.25/t.
Spot gold delivered some surprising good news, gaining 0.37% to $US1031.5 an ounce.
But despite the good news in the gold price, most gold plays fell with Sino Gold down 35c to $6.38, Lihir Gold losing 8c to $2.98, Newmont Mining falling 15c to $4.57 and Newcrest Mining down $1.45 to $32.46.
With the release of its quarterly statement, Lihir gave a strong signal of the positive outlook for the company by announcing its first dividend payment of 1.5c per share since 2003.
The miner also boosted reserves at its Lihir Island mine in Papua New Guinea by 36% to 28.8 million ounces.
The news overshadowed a 21% drop on-quarter in third quarter gold output to 233,346oz of gold.
Looking at the copper plays and Aditya Birla was down 15.5c to $1.02, while Rex Minerals slumped 11c to $1.79.
The nickel miners did little better with Falcon Minerals down 2.5c to 19c, Mincor Resources losing 17c to $2.11, and Independence Group down 35c to $4.26.
On the uranium side of things Paladin Energy set about revising down its 2010 financial year production forecast after slower than predicted ramp-ups at the Langer Heinrich and Kayelekera projects.
Paladin now estimates production in the range of 5.6-6.1 million pounds, down from an expected 6.6Mlb uranium.
Shares in the uranium miner closed 22c lower to $4.28.
Mantra Resources delivered some good news to the market with infill drilling confirming the continuity of mineralised zones at the Nyota uranium prospect, but the news failed to excite investors and shares slipped 32c to $4.40.
Emerging lithium producer Galaxy Resources delivered its quarterly statement to the market but was rocked by a share plummet which saw an 18.5c loss to $1.30.
BHP Billiton fell $1.27 to $37.13, while Rio Tinto dropped $3.12 to $60.98.
Gainers in today’s session were few and far between, but Strategic Minerals did manage to boost its share value 28.95% or 1.1c to 4.9c after a trading halt was lifted.
The company announced a capital raising to boost its war chest by some $2.3 million to support the next exploration program and prefeasibility assessment for the development of its Woolgar gold project.
Focus Minerals was the most heavily traded stock of the day with more than 154 million shares changing hands even as high-grade drill results point to a significant increase in resources at Perseverance.
