Ore shoot

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Ore Shoot

The term "ore shoot" is on the borderline between scientific and colloquial terminology in mining and mining geology. Consequently, there is no specific published source to which reference can be made.

Tabular or sheet-like deposits of metalliferous ores often contain areas of enhanced metal content that are larger in one dimension than another. Thus a "vein," "lode" or other mineral-bearing structure could be 5 to 20 feet thick, steeply inclined within the host rock, persisting for hundreds or thousands of feet horizontally and vertically. Such a structure could contain an area of enhanced metal content extending 100 feet horizontally and 500 feet vertically. This would be termed an "ore shoot." The existence of the ore shoot could be recognized visually in a tunnel or "drift" excavated along the structure, or by the assaying of rock samples cut from the walls and roof of the tunnel.

A structure may contain multiple ore shoots; a knowledge of their characteristics and positioning in relation to each other may be an aid to the better understanding of the ore deposit.

The term may have originated in the 1600s and 1700s, when various theories existed on the origins of ore deposits, including some that suggested they grew in the manner of trees.