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Mile High, Mile Deep


Eric
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5 minutes ago, Batesmotel said:

What ore?

The first one? Copper, gold, silver and zinc mostly. Butte Montana is sitting on some rich deposits.

There are mining operations all throughout that region. In the Idaho panhandle, there used to be a hell of a lot of silver mining. Those mines transitioned to other metals when the silver played out. I've been down inside the Star-Phoenix Mine, in the mountains northeast of Wallace, ID, near the Montana border. It is a very different world down there.

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This is the Sunshine Mine, near Kellog, ID. In 1972, 91 miners lost their lives due to smoke inhalation, as a result of an underground fire. I used to drive by the monument to them every day on my way to work, when I lived up their. The monument is along the north side of I-90, between Wallace (where I lived) and Kellog, ID.

 

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One of the most unusual mining sites in the world is the Australian town of Coober Pedy. The town is the site of one of the largest opal mines in the world. It lies in a very hot region and to escape the heat, something like 85% of the town exists in old areas of the mine. As a point of interest, Coober Pedy was the town where Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome was filmed.

https://www.cooberpedy.com/

 

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My grandfather worked in a mine most of his life beginning in the 1930's until he retired in 1960.  My dad worked there, too, when he was young but later became an aeronautical engineer.  It was the McIntyre mine in Northern Ontario that was 4.250 feet deep and from 1912 to 1988 they milled 37,529,691 tons of ore, producing 10,745,361 ounces of gold.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McIntyre_Mines

 

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1 hour ago, railfancwb said:

I wonder if, over the years, they haven’t mined more gold from tourists’ pockets than they did from underground.

Interesting that the commemorative “coin” for a gold mine was struck in silver.   

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I've been in that mine. My parents use to live in Lake George Colorado. Pikes Peak is also not far from there.

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