It is not uncommon to see miners drop a winze or run a stope on a rich quartz vein in a gold mine. If a quartz vein is particularly good, one can even see a couple of areas in a mine where the miners ran both up and down on a vein… However, it is unusual to see THIS MANY instances in which miners chased a vein simultaneously up and down as they did at this abandoned gold mine. And, to be clear, I’m referring to the smaller, historical mines and not the gigantic, modern mine complexes with that observation.
If the flooded workings at this mine were comparable to the stopes, a lot of quartz was hauled out! The small waste rock pile outside did not in any way compare to the volume of space that we observed underground. So, that is further evidence that they were bringing gold ore (quartz) out rather than just waste rock. That quartz would have been milled down (there was a stamp mill near the adit) and there would be little trace of it today.
I thought it was interesting to see where the miners lost the quartz vein for several hundred feet, but persisted and found it again. It is rare in the older mines to see areas where the miners rolled the dice for that long and continued working in the hope of getting on the vein again. That they were so motivated to do so at this mine suggests that the vein must have been pretty rich.
If you think about the situation at this mine, that suggests that there are a lot of abandoned gold mines out there where a rich quartz vein is just a short distance away from where the miners abandoned their work. Should technology advance to the point where gold can be detected more than just a few feet into solid rock, some interesting “near misses” could undoubtedly be uncovered.
This is one of those gold mines that has changed owners and names so many times that it is impossible to trace its history.
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You can see the full TVR Exploring playlist of abandoned mines here: goo.gl/TEKq9L
You can see the gear that I use for mine exploring here: bit.ly/2wqcBDD and here: bit.ly/2p6Jip6
Several kind viewers have asked about donating to help cover some of the many expenses associated with exploring these abandoned mines. Inspired by their generosity, I set up a Patreon account. So, if anyone would care to chip in, I’m under TVR Exploring on Patreon.
Thanks for watching!
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Growing up in California’s “Gold Rush Country” made it easy to take all of the history around us for granted. However, abandoned mine sites have a lot working against them - nature, vandals, scrappers and various government agencies… The old prospectors and miners that used to roam our lonely mountains and toil away deep underground are disappearing quickly as well.
These losses finally caught our attention and we felt compelled to make an effort to document as many of the ghost towns and abandoned mines that we could before that colorful niche of our history is gone forever.
I hope you’ll join us on these adventures!
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26 дек 2023
