Just last week was inspecting galena and dozens more at the lead mining museum Wanlockhead, 18th century mines at Scotland's highest village. Slate roofs here feature lead flashings and Drumlanrig Castle features lead roof and rainwater gutters.
Back in grad school at KU, a bunch of us took a weekend to explore the old Tri-State district. There was one mine operating as a tourist attraction. We told the guy we just wanted to collect, not do a tour, so he sent us down in a metal cage and turned us loose. I collected several boxes of galena/sphalerite/chalcopyrite/dolomite specimens that look exactly like the one in your picture. The pillars (room and pillar method) were the best for collecting. As you can imagine, they had been whittled down by years of collecting. You could not pay me to go down there again at my current age.
Nice, especially the description of the placement. So all lead sources are hydrothermal, right? But I read silver isn't found in MVPs, its in the kinds of deposits out west. Not sure of the difference though, if they are both hydrothermal. I would think the non limestone deposits were more direct, not travelling so far.
Those are excellent observations. I don't think I am knowledgeable enough to know or speculate about things like silver in MVPs nor about the details of exactly how the Mississippi Valley deposits form. If asked without looking things up, I would probably have said that the Mississippi Valley types would have migrated several hundreds of km, from basin centers - but I don't really know if that is correct or not.
Yes indeed, although it looks like there isn't a worldwide ban yet, with lead-based paint still sold for domestic use in for example China, Thailand, and Nigeria. I could not quickly discover how voluminous the use of lead in paint was historically compared to other uses. I'll see if I can find that before our next beer together.
Just last week was inspecting galena and dozens more at the lead mining museum Wanlockhead, 18th century mines at Scotland's highest village. Slate roofs here feature lead flashings and Drumlanrig Castle features lead roof and rainwater gutters.
Back in grad school at KU, a bunch of us took a weekend to explore the old Tri-State district. There was one mine operating as a tourist attraction. We told the guy we just wanted to collect, not do a tour, so he sent us down in a metal cage and turned us loose. I collected several boxes of galena/sphalerite/chalcopyrite/dolomite specimens that look exactly like the one in your picture. The pillars (room and pillar method) were the best for collecting. As you can imagine, they had been whittled down by years of collecting. You could not pay me to go down there again at my current age.
Nice, especially the description of the placement. So all lead sources are hydrothermal, right? But I read silver isn't found in MVPs, its in the kinds of deposits out west. Not sure of the difference though, if they are both hydrothermal. I would think the non limestone deposits were more direct, not travelling so far.
Those are excellent observations. I don't think I am knowledgeable enough to know or speculate about things like silver in MVPs nor about the details of exactly how the Mississippi Valley deposits form. If asked without looking things up, I would probably have said that the Mississippi Valley types would have migrated several hundreds of km, from basin centers - but I don't really know if that is correct or not.
Isn't lead based paint another obselet use of lead?
Yes indeed, although it looks like there isn't a worldwide ban yet, with lead-based paint still sold for domestic use in for example China, Thailand, and Nigeria. I could not quickly discover how voluminous the use of lead in paint was historically compared to other uses. I'll see if I can find that before our next beer together.