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 Post subject: Sparta Mine Featured on IronMiners!
PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 1:18 am 
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Location: Winnemucca, NV
The IronMiners are thrilled to present our latest slideshow, the Sparta Copper Mine. This historic mine nestled within the Hudson Highlands is a beautiful example of earlier 19th century mining. The slideshow premiers some of the oldest mining efforts documented on our site. We hope this helps give the viewer a more well-rounded look into our mining history. Enjoy and always wear your hard hats folks.

Please visit http://www.ironminers.com/ironmines/sparta-mine-1.htm.

The IronMiners Team.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 9:06 am 
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Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
nice, great photos and commentary. they only took 700 lbs of copper out? seems pretty big though, did the shafts go down too or just up?

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 10:01 am 
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Location: Monroe, CT
Great job Mike! I think you really captured the thrill of exploring a 1000' long tunnel that you can barely stand up in and is flooded up to your waste! good info too!


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PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:01 pm 
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Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
hey, so for the ct boys who have yet to venture to the dry side......... dont you get real cold from the water. i mean if you stay in it for so long cant you get hypothermia? i guess in the summer it wouldnt be bad but in the winter the water has to be cold, near the opening that is. once you get in a bit do you notice the temp go up, or is it pretty constant. i just know when we were in that copper exploratory tunnel outside tunkhannock thats only like 40 feet long, we did it ct style in the middle of january, i think, and i remember saying i dont know how the ct guys go like this for so long :lol: we were freezing after only a short time. maybe thats cause we are from pa and not yet accustomed to the ways of "wet mining" :lol:

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:28 pm 
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Location: Gouldsboro, PA
LOL :lol:


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 9:21 pm 
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Location: Hard coal region, PA
"Miner CT Mike makes his measurements to confirm the wider pneumatic drill holes."

Whats the measurable difference between a hole drilled by hand and a hole drilled pneumatically?

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 10:12 pm 
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Location: Monroe, CT
Chris- first of all I need to say that exploring CT style is not the correct way to conduct mine research, hypothermia can be an issue. CT style is basically derived from missions that had to be carried out as light as possible with only essential gear, at the cost of a little discomfort. so we have become accustomed to it I dont even notice being wet when we have been underground for hours and we are moving around alot. and Banks- the earlier pre 1880s drill holes are smaller diameter an iregular and were drilled by hand! the larger 2'' diameter holes were made by pneumatic drills, there are exeptions but we can use this to roughly date workings.


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 12:03 am 
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When I have had to go CT style, especially in Brewster, I would already know the water is pretty damn cold and so I wouldn't let it get to me. Plus, I would have a fair idea of how long I expected to be in the cold water to know whether it was worth doing. I think it is about knowing your limits and what is simply too cold for you. However, I would strongly suggest waders. There is no point risking hypothermia to prove anything.

I went CT style once through the entire Oxford Tunnel about 10 years ago which is a mile long. It starts out dry but the water level slowly climbs 3/4 of the way toward your hips. It was definitely pretty cold. I didn't know the tunnel was a mile long at the time. I turned back.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 9:45 am 
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Location: Hamburg, NJ
This is the best mine update to date! love the water drops you can see on one of the photos, just excellent. Good research on the history. The slideshow is almost like a movie.

Good thing you were able to go back and get in. Was it any dryer? Was that ominous bulldozer still next to the adit?

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 8:08 pm 
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Location: Hard coal region, PA
I see... 2"..I didn't know there was much of a diameter difference in pneumatic drill holes and hand dirlled holes. Interesting....

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 9:58 pm 
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Dan, the bulldozer was gone this time and the park hadn't looked any more developed. The first portion of the mine up to the first shaft drains very well spilling into a tiny body of water near the railroad. Once you are at the shaft however, the debris from the shaft creates a dam and holds back more water. Here it appeared that the water level was a little higher than last time. Perhaps Miner Steve remembers the depth of the water better as it spilled over his boots! :lol:

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 Post subject: Sparta Mine
PostPosted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 12:19 pm 
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Location: Fairfield, CT
I think you can even see a little of the green Vaquelinite or Pyromorphite on the walls in places! The secondary mineralization is quite extensive nonetheless.

Vaquelinite is a REALLY odd mineral, it is named after Louis Nicolas Vaquelin, the discoverer of Chromium and Vaquelinite contains Chromium in an interesting form- as CrO4- - ions! The composition of Vaquelinite is Pb2Cu[OH I PO4 I CrO4], which is quite odd. This occurance of this mineral indicates that other minerals containing Hexavalent chromium may be present- such as Crocoite and Embreyite!

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 1:45 pm 
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Jeremy, great eye and thanks for sharing this information. Steve and I took particular note of the green mineralization on the wall. We spent some time searching for some of the notable minerals but did not turn up anything worth taking home. Oddly the dumps for both adits are completely removed. It would have been nice to spend some time on them.

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 Post subject: They might be micros...
PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 10:45 am 
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Location: Fairfield, CT
Chances are, the minerals are micros! The crystals are probably not visible without extensive magnification. I am a collector of micromounts and so I appreciate such small specimens but many people overlook them. In my opinion, ANYTHING showing signs of interesting minerals is worth taking home because I often hae a field day under my microscope? Can you give directions to the mine? Are the shafts open for exploration? If you saw ANY grren/blue/orangey mineralization in vuggy rock then chances are there are SUPERB micros! The mine is about 1 mile south of the Ossining Railroad Station (according to Mindat...) but does anyone have more specific directions?

P.S..... Did anyone see any Wulfenite or Vanadinite? Of course, their crystals would probably be <3mm but I'm just wondering if anyone saw any.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 22, 2007 7:44 pm 
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For those of you who don't know, the Sparta Mine has been backfilled shut and all visible traces of the mine gone. This is a very unfortunate reminder that no matter how important, our mining history is still disregarded and left to disappear. Without visitation and documentation of these mine sites, we will forever lose a perspective on our past.

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