Thursday, August 28, 2003

Greetings from Weardale.

This morning is cool, calm and relatively clear, just a scattering of high clouds. Perhaps we will forego the drizzle of the past two days. However, load-out and the St. John's Chapel show are approaching and it traditionally rains for both. At least this year we are loading the fluorite into plastic bins rather than trying to assemble pallets of cardboard boxes.

Yesterday morning the bins finally arrived and Jonina and Sarah launched into a frenzy of wrapping and packing the final load of fluorite. It looks like there is still some to be done today but we are in the home stretch. Some folks from the Friends of Killhope had an appointment at the mine first thing in the morning to pick up their final load of donated fluorite and galena, so Cal and headed off to meet them and left Jonina to her chores.

At the mine Dave set to timbering the main face so that it would be safe for Byron to dig and collect. While this was going on, Byron busied himself collecting at the pocket zone he had discovered in the western branch of the main tunnel. This "pocket" is very high up, near the ceiling of the tunnel. The material from it looks very much like what we get from the West Cross Cut except that the fluorite crystals so far have been no larger that around 6-7 cm. A while ago we noticed that there appears to be a small mud-filled fault zone running through this part of the mine, and the last round at the new main face exposed it on the west side of the tunnel. It is also exposed in the branch of the tunnel where Byron was working, just to the east of his pocket. What it looks like to me is that this fault has shifted the ground to the west of it upward a meter or two and that the flats we thought were missing are actually slightly above this stretch of tunnel. It would have been nice to have known this last year so we could have avoided driving around 20 meters of barren tunnel, but knowing the geological structure of an area depends on getting exposures, and the only way to get exposures underground is to drive tunnel. As the fault appears to either parallel the vein or cross at a very shallow angle we will - in theory - have any flats present adjacent to the vein in this area elevated to the west side. If flats are present on both sides of the vein as they are to the south in the Black Sheep-West Cross Cut area, this will mean working on two different levels. I mentioned this to Dave and his response was "ah, nae bother". Nice to have a miner with a positive attitude.

Cal, meanwhile, spent much of his day back in the West Cross Cut for one final go at it this season. The area is still dangerously overhung by an unsupported ceiling and will have to be cleaned out and timbered before any more exploration can be done here. The area still has some fluorite showing but has been become less productive of good material than earlier in the summer. If the pocket zone is pinching out, it has sure given us a good run for the past two years. It will take a bit of work to get the area stabilized in order to allow more digging here - something that will have to wait for next year. Cal meanwhile sprayed and pried out rock and large mud lumps, which I duly loaded into a wheelbarrow and took out to the dump. In the process the West Cross Cut gave up a bunch of wholesale-grade material and one final surprise - pictured in today's photo. Cal also managed to dislodge a very large fluorite-covered boulder that has at least one in-place stalactite. This rock is way to large to be carried out of the mine and took both of us just to maneuver under the timbered area of the cross cut, out of the way of any potential ceiling falls. Today Byron will carve this one up with the chain saw.

Otherwise, this will be a day of final packing for tomorrow's shipment. Cal will be taking Kerith back to the clinic in Bishop Auckland shortly for her check-up. With any luck she will get a lighter cast and be allowed to travel back home next week.

Stay tuned for one more…

Cheers,

Jesse & the crew.

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