Enjoyable video. Awesome place, I would really like to go there. So much history wrapped up in those rocks. The formation of the Iberian peninsula is an intriguing and complex story.
I worked in this place for four years and loved it. Great geology, great food, nice people living there and great colleagues too. Even made a major discovery there using geophysics (TEM & IP). The water in the Confesionarios pit had pH2 so we couldn't wash our cars with it!
@@robbutler2095 Drinking water was supplied from some unknown location by a local with a donkey cart. The water for drilling was another headache and one invoice was so high the boss exploded and said it would have been cheaper to use wine. We had a regular supply of geophysics students from Leicester and Delft every summer, geology students from Cambridge occasionally. Those were the days!
This begs the question of how those other copper deposits were introduced in that magnificent mine at the Great Orme. This is about 100 miles South East of the Iapetus suture zone at Niarbyl on the Isle of Man. So wouldn't these structures have been created so much earlier, in the Caledonian orogeny? I'm trying to get a sense of the whole story of Avalonia, from its birth at the splitting from Gondwanaland, through to its extinction when Gondwanaland came back to meet it, in and afte the Variscan.
Phenomenal Professor. This has genuinely helped with some review I have been doing on the Stibnite Mining District of Idaho, United States. There, the mineralization is Eocene through Precambrian metasediments.
My absolute bad, I had no idea how geologically significant Spain was, as a petroleum geologist I haven't given much thought to ore mineralisation since I was a student, sometimes you need a good teacher to spark your interest again. Once again you've done a really interesting video.
thoroughly enjoy your informative video lectures, watching each one attentively. Could you please consider creating a lecture series on seismic sedimentology and seismic geomorphology?
I recall reading the Romans seized these mines when they expanded into this region, and over the following centuries mined them on a massive scale with slave labor and extracted enormous quantities of copper and silver.
HI - thanks for the question. To make good pencil cleavage, two sets of planar fabrics provide the geomety - in this case bedding (thinly spaced when fine-grained unit) and cleavage...
Almost certainly! This has been a problem in some other locations like the dolerite dyke at Portrush in N. Ireland. As a student, I had to help out on palaeomag trips drilling the cores, and as a generator had to be brought along, the sites were always beside roads. The core is drilled, then orientated and marked with a compass device before being snapped out with a screwdriver.
I wonder if, in a post fossil fuel age, places like this will be mined for the sulfur. The pyrite might become more valuable once desulfurization of oil and gas are no longer available as sources of sulfur.
There is an immense amount of roman mines and related works still extant in Spain, even after the intensive reworking of many of them in the XIX-XX centuries. Not a few of them are exactly as they were abandoned. Copper, tin, lead, silver, mercury, iron, marble and more exotic materials like glass quality gypsum ( _lapis specularis_ ) to make windows before glass was cheap enough for mundane uses. You can see very interesting and well documented videos in UA-cam from the engineer Isaac Moreno Gallo, @IsaacMorenoGallo. His works on the 700+ kilometers of water channeling for gold beneficiation in northern Iberia are specially noteworthy.
Scrambling around old mine workings is always interesting. Thanks for the video Rob.
Another fantastic video. Thanks Rob
Thanks Rob for putting these videos out there! I love the passion and the topics are very enlightening
Glad you enjoy them... more to follow!
Enjoyable video. Awesome place, I would really like to go there. So much history wrapped up in those rocks. The formation of the Iberian peninsula is an intriguing and complex story.
I worked in this place for four years and loved it. Great geology, great food, nice people living there and great colleagues too. Even made a major discovery there using geophysics (TEM & IP). The water in the Confesionarios pit had pH2 so we couldn't wash our cars with it!
Good call re-car-washing!
@@robbutler2095 Drinking water was supplied from some unknown location by a local with a donkey cart. The water for drilling was another headache and one invoice was so high the boss exploded and said it would have been cheaper to use wine. We had a regular supply of geophysics students from Leicester and Delft every summer, geology students from Cambridge occasionally. Those were the days!
This begs the question of how those other copper deposits were introduced in that magnificent mine at the Great Orme. This is about 100 miles South East of the Iapetus suture zone at Niarbyl on the Isle of Man. So wouldn't these structures have been created so much earlier, in the Caledonian orogeny? I'm trying to get a sense of the whole story of Avalonia, from its birth at the splitting from Gondwanaland, through to its extinction when Gondwanaland came back to meet it, in and afte the Variscan.
All good questions - ponderings... Copper of course at Parys Mountain on Anglesey but a differernt "play" to the Orme...
Phenomenal Professor. This has genuinely helped with some review I have been doing on the Stibnite Mining District of Idaho, United States. There, the mineralization is Eocene through Precambrian metasediments.
Glad it was helpful... always good to compare the geology of different places... good luck with your study!
My absolute bad, I had no idea how geologically significant Spain was, as a petroleum geologist I haven't given much thought to ore mineralisation since I was a student, sometimes you need a good teacher to spark your interest again. Once again you've done a really interesting video.
Thanks for the interest... lots of good stuff in Spain!!
Perfect. Perfect
Great information. Thank you for sharing. I didn’t realize what a brilliant mess Spains geology was.
Thanks - mess is a bit harsh! ;) ... some great accounts of Variscan tectonics out there...
thoroughly enjoy your informative video lectures, watching each one attentively. Could you please consider creating a lecture series on seismic sedimentology and seismic geomorphology?
I recall reading the Romans seized these mines when they expanded into this region, and over the following centuries mined them on a massive scale with slave labor and extracted enormous quantities of copper and silver.
Yes indeed - the Pyrite Belt was big for the Romans, also Cyprus
I like the pencil structure you discussed. Is there the third plane to control its 3D geometry "pencil structure"?
HI - thanks for the question. To make good pencil cleavage, two sets of planar fabrics provide the geomety - in this case bedding (thinly spaced when fine-grained unit) and cleavage...
Cored samples could be for palaeomag work ...
more likely focussed microchemistry or microstructural studies in these cases... either way - incredibly thoughtless and selfish
Almost certainly! This has been a problem in some other locations like the dolerite dyke at Portrush in N. Ireland. As a student, I had to help out on palaeomag trips drilling the cores, and as a generator had to be brought along, the sites were always beside roads. The core is drilled, then orientated and marked with a compass device before being snapped out with a screwdriver.
I wonder if, in a post fossil fuel age, places like this will be mined for the sulfur. The pyrite might become more valuable once desulfurization of oil and gas are no longer available as sources of sulfur.
Interesting musings. Oil-sourced sulphur certainly hit the sulphur mining sector ... (e.g. on Sicily)...
Never sure why Spanish geology overlooked by UK university degrees. Cycled across Spain and lots of great roadside geology.
Used to be popular for field excursions - but not this area... Pyrenees and Betics etc....
There is an immense amount of roman mines and related works still extant in Spain, even after the intensive reworking of many of them in the XIX-XX centuries. Not a few of them are exactly as they were abandoned. Copper, tin, lead, silver, mercury, iron, marble and more exotic materials like glass quality gypsum ( _lapis specularis_ ) to make windows before glass was cheap enough for mundane uses. You can see very interesting and well documented videos in UA-cam from the engineer Isaac Moreno Gallo, @IsaacMorenoGallo. His works on the 700+ kilometers of water channeling for gold beneficiation in northern Iberia are specially noteworthy.
Thanks for the comment and the interesting link!