Ancient and modern careers

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-02 02:33

On these pages, the topic of the presence on Earth of ancient and at the same time gigantic quarries was repeatedly raised.

Somewhere there are striking examples, like the structure Conder … Somewhere not so expressive and contrasting, but also thought-provoking examples. But there are many more examples to show. Most of them pose the question: what was being mined? Sometimes you can find out the answer simply (as with the same Konder - there are platinum deposits), but somewhere there is no answer.

This time, we will go through most of the examples of copper quarries, see if there is a hint in the types of modern mine workings that mining was already carried out in these places a very long time ago. And moreover, on such a scale that a modern person never dreamed of …

Deposits of copper ore. One of the types of this ore: chalcopyrite (from the Greek χαλκóς "copper" + pyrite) - a mineral from the group of sulfides, synonym - copper pyrite. Chemical formula - CuFeS2.

Origin … The so-called "cuprous sandstones" - sandstones containing chalcopyrite and other copper compounds, also arose due to hydrothermal solutionscoming from magma chambers along the zones of tectonic faults. Hydrothermal waters, in contact with calcite, cementing sandstones, metasomatically replaces it with sulfide compounds. Chalcopyrite also forms among sedimentary rocks, separating from surface waters rich in copper compounds, especially copper sulfate. In addition, chalcopyrite is released during crystallization of basic and felsic magmas and occurs as disseminations in basic and felsic igneous rocks. Copper pyrite is also of volcanic origin (Kounrad deposit in Kazakhstan).

It caught my eye: "hydrothermal solutions". This means that once these deposits were formed by water coming out of the ground, which washed out the rock, forming a solution, and a slurry.

Or: "Chalcopyrite is also formed among sedimentary rocks, escaping from surface waters." An allusion to the fact that the rock was formed from the sediments of the mudflow mass of the flood. And from the photographs of the area, which will be given below, it can be traced.

Place of Birth … In Eurasia, copper ore deposits are located in Kazakhstan - Kounradskoye, Dzhezkazgan, etc., Central Asia (Almalyk), in the Urals (Karpushinskoye, Levikhinskoye, etc.), in Georgia (Madneuli), in Eastern Siberia, Orenburg region (Gayskoye, Blyavinskoye, Autumn, Spring, Dzhusinskoe, Barsuchiy Log). Copper-nickel deposits were discovered in the north of the Krasnoyarsk Territory: Talnakhskoye, Oktyabrskoye, Noril'skoye. The Udokan deposit (Chita region) is famous.

The largest copper deposit in the world is located in Chile - it is the Esconida quarry.

Other major deposits:

• mines on the Kivino Peninsula (USA, Michigan);

• the Chuquicamata mine in Chile (up to 600 thousand tons per year);

• the Corocoro mine in Bolivia;

• the Gumishevsky mine (Middle Urals, Russia) - now depleted;

• Valley of the Lyovikha River (Middle Ural, Russia);

• gabbro massif (Italy).

So let's take a look at some of the mines, quarries from this list:

Esconida, Chile

Huge quarry. Large deposits of native copper have been discovered here.

Note the hills on the left in the photo. It does not look like a mountain range, but looks like chaotically poured waste heaps, dumps. Do you see two elongated rectangular heaps near the quarry itself? Would they be square - why not the earthen pyramids of Teotihuacan in Mexico? Or maybe there are not pyramids in Teotihuacan, but dumps from mines, undergrounds, which archaeologists have found quite recently. But they did not think of studying the content of metals under the "pyramids". Let me remind you that recently these pyramids looked like hills: MEXICAN PYRAMIDS BEFORE RESTORATION

Hilly area around the mine. Does it look like waste heaps, embankments, dumps? In my opinion - quite. Map link

Slightly north of this place Esconida is another copper ore deposit:

Dumps of a copper mine in Chuquicamata, Chile

It is very likely that these are modern dumps on top of the ancient ones. It is possible that the ancients were smoothed out by the waters of the flood. Map link

Modern dumps will erode rare rains, wind around them and in a hundred years they will turn into hills, it will not even be clear that these were dumps.

The foreground is modern dumps. Dalny - the ancients?

There are even installations for the paste thickening of ore dressing products. We will talk about this topic next time.

Next place:

Bingham Canyon, Utah, USA. Copper ore was found here in 1850 and 13 years later they began to develop the deposit. As of 2008, the depth of the quarry reached 1.2 km, width 4 km, and an area of 1900 acres. About 450 thousand tons of rock were extracted from the quarry every day.

View from above. Could it be our poking around in the giant recycled dumps that we now call sedimentary mountains?

Quarry on the other side

Bingham Canyon is closed due to a giant landslide, which covered vehicles, equipment and destroyed part of the complex of buildings located at its edge. The incident occurred on April 11, 2013.

The volume of waste rock that was poured at the edge of the quarry for all the years could not withstand the pressure and part of the slope slid down under its own weight.

Digressing, I will say that it is not at all ruled out that such creeps from high hills, consisting of sedimentary rocks, are the destruction of those very ancient dumps. Sedimentary rocks in such high peaked hills do not fold during mountain building. Aerial view of landslide-damaged area in Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia. The picture was taken on October 3, 2009 after the earthquake. (AP Photo / Dita Alangkara). Landslides are a separate topic. Perhaps I will touch on it in the next posts.

Unnatural black fells in the vicinity of the Corocoro mine, Bolivia. Very similar to the dumps, which stand out in color against the background of the rest of the hills. Link to place

Potosi Silver Mines, Bolivia

Mount Sero Rico. Link to place

The hill stands out (especially from a height) with its unnatural appearance and color against the background of the mountains

In this mountain there are silver mines, where silver is mined by artisanal methods. But perhaps this is just a second extraction.

The town of Potosi itself is located on level ground, possibly on ancient dumps.

Modern heaps on the hillside

The article NORIL LANDSCAPES. ANCIENT MINES DUMP? I tried to show the relationship of modern developments with possible ancient ones. I gave photos, but did not show how they look from above:

On the right is a modern copper-nickel quarry with modern dumps. On the right - it is possible that ancient dumps. Map link

Can you tell the difference between ancient dumps and modern ones?

To the south. Looks like the dumps are a couple of hundred years old? But in fact, these mountains are millions of years old - this is what geology tells us.

Modern dumps are poured on top

Geology says these are all outpouring of tuffs and lavas millions of years ago. Hence the bedding in the rocks. Perhaps there is no mystery here.

Nearby there is a sludge lake (effluent after ore dressing)

"Terraces" near Kaerkan (view to the west) - also near Norilsk. Map link

And this is near the Kaerkan coal mine. How do you resemble?

Together

Moving on …

Grasberg, Indonesia

Grasberg is considered the highest quarry in the world, it is located at an altitude of 4285 meters above sea level. The development of the quarry began in 1973. At the moment, the quarry has reached a depth of 480 meters.

This, of course, is a modern quarry and there were no older workings here. But the analogy here is different, just below

The Grasberg deposit is the largest gold mine and the third largest copper mine and also the tallest open pit in the world. It is located in the Papua province of Indonesia, near Punchak Jaya, the highest mountain in Papua New Guinea. The development employs 20 thousand employees. In 2006, there was a production of 610,800 tons of copper; 58,474,392 kilograms of gold and 174,458,971 kilograms of silver.

Peer into these terraces

The analogy is as follows:

Familiar place? Machu Picchu

Familiar terraces

Could it be that the rest of the terror is hidden by the trees?

The official conclusion of historians: this is the Inca agricultural terraces, Moray.

This is Cuzco. Peru. And historians are wondering - why are all these terraces made? Sounds like a small quarry? Historians are not surprised that the Indians of South America had a huge amount of gold items. How and where was it mined? They calculated how much it takes to shovel rocks before mining and smelting 1 kg of gold? They have an answer - everything was found in its native state, almost in ingots. Now, for some reason, nuggets are rare.

Well, why would the Incas have to dig such holes and arrange terraces in them for agricultural planting, when you can simply plant your own corn, lentils in more even areas? Right? Quarry terraces are the most appropriate explanation.

This is also Peru. It is possible that the Indians who came to these places were able to refine the terraces for their crops. Or they were helped so that they could survive in the mountains.

And before them it was something like this:

Ollantaytambo terraces

Many people ask the question: why it was necessary to make such huge steps and steps for the normal growth of a person.

Also Ollantaytambo. Perhaps the entire slope is the terrace of an ancient quarry.

There are also terraces in Indonesia:

But this is all the work of the locals, who created it with hoes on the slopes in the clay hills.

Bali

For example, in ancient times there were quarries, but secondary mining in our time on their dumps is impossible - everything is worked out there. It turns out that this is far from the case. A lot of gold dust and small particles remained in the dumps of the former workings. They are extracted with modern technologies, washing with water jets.

Dump from gold mining. Johannesburg, South Africa. We decided to rewash.

Here it was poured when raising rocks from a gold mine

And now there are excursions to the mines

In the city itself there are other hills - heaps from gold mines:

How do you like modern pyramid-embankments?

The volume of the excavated rock is simply enormous!

These, too, are waste rock heaps of gold mines

It is possible that these hills on the outskirts of the city are more ancient dumps. By the way, there are many lakes near the city, including round ones - like quarry ones.

Flooded quarries

Mine dumps near residential areas

Growing dump

In 50-100 years, these dumps will be eaten by erosion, they will overgrow and information about their origin will be forgotten, because all the gold has already been worked out in this place. And they will begin to be called simply natural hills.

These are the examples I showed this time. You can agree with this, you can not. But I think it's worth pondering over a lot.