Homestake Mine (South Dakota)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Homestake Mine is a deep underground gold mine located near Lead, South Dakota. Until it closed in 2002 it was the largest, oldest, and deepest mine in the Western Hemisphere. The Homestake Mine was the site of the pioneering Davis Experiment, the first experiment to observe solar neutrinos.
It is one of two mines being considered by the United States as a location for the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (DUSEL). The other mine is the Henderson Mine near Empire, Colorado. Although the Homestake Mine is about one hundred years old and has structural and water problems, it remains under consideration because it is about 3000 feet (900 meters) deeper than the Henderson Mine, in use as a molybdenum mine since 1976.
Contents |
[edit] History
The Homestake deposit was discovered by Moses Manuel and Hank Harney in April 1876, during the Black Hills Gold Rush. Mining entrepreneur George Hearst bought it from them for $70,000 the following year. Hearst had to haul in all the mining equipment by wagons from the nearest railhead in Sidney, Nebraska. Despite the remote location, an 80-stamp mill began crushing Homestake ore in July 1878.
The gold ore mined at Homestake was always low grade (less than one ounce per ton), but very large. Through 1965, the mine produced 28 million ounces of gold and 6 million ounces of silver.[1]
[edit] References
- ^ A.L. Slaughter (1968) The Homestake mine, in Ore Deposits of the United States 1933-1967, New York: American Institute of Mining Engineers, p.1436-1459.
[edit] See also
- Raymond Davis Jr.
- Solar neutrino problem
- Colorado Mineral Belt re Henderson Mine
[edit] External links
 |
This particle physics-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
