Glory hole (mining)
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For other uses, see glory hole.
A glory hole is a type of mine. In the western United States during the Gold Rush days, independent miners who did not have the finances to dig a conventional mine shaft would dig a shaft straight down to try to find a gold seam. These perpendicular shafts became known as "glory holes".
In modern mining, a glory hole is an open-cut or pit mine used to reach and mine an ore deposit. The ore is extracted from the bottom level via an adit. In glory-hole mining, a steep-sided, funnel-shaped surface excavation is connected to tunnels below it. Rocks blasted off the sides of the excavation fall into the tunnels, from which they are then removed.
Many similar holes or excavations in construction sites may also be referred to as glory holes.
