Blue John is just blue fluorspar and is unique to that mine in Castleton,

Although I haven't seen Ganister or Calcite on the list

Thanks LeeW for the input, much appreciated. And welcome to the forum!

Just to recap we have suggested:

Bitumen (bimuninous coal)
Cobalt
Umber
Ganister
Calcite

I'm still a bit confused about whether to add Marble or not, or Ashford Black Marble (being a type of limestone).

Any mineralogists care to interject??

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I'm not a mineralogist, but did some petrology at college many years ago. Technically a marble is a metamorphic rock, an altered sedimentary limestone if you like. Marble as used in construction can tend to be a general term. An example is "Forest Marble" which is a very "shelly" (or fossiliferous) jurassic limestone, which when polished gives a nice marble effect.
I'd be inclined to just call them limestone.

Another example is the use of granite, to describe all sorts of "hard" rock, usually igneous, but sometimes sedimentary!

Ashford Black Marble is just a limestone (it's not been altered (metamorphosed) and not a marble, it just polishes nice and looks pretty.

Like the forest marble I would just leave it as limestone. There are probably going to be alot of localised names for minerals / rocks such as white rock (Yorkshire term = sandstone), **** in Northumbria can also be same as hard rock (and in some cases not a true ****)

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Hi All,

I had a quick word with SRL re. mineral types, and the upshot was this:

1) Classify a mine by it's main product. So, if it was/is a coal mine, then the product is coal, even if ganister (which I suspect might be a type of quartzite sandstone) may have been a by-product. there may be ganister mines (in Newfoundland?), but I don't think it was ever the main reason for starting a mine in the UK.
2) Keep it simple. As Lee said, if it's a limestone quarry, then the product is limestone: doesn't matter how much you polish it up. Any byproducts, minerals found in association, popular names (like Blue John) etc. can be put in the mine description box. There are some marble quarries in the UK - there's one on Skye, so that would be classified as such.
3) If it's a metal mine, just list the main metal they were refining, so copper, lead, gold etc. Most metal mines produce a range of minerals, so lots of lead mines also produced minor amounts of silver, but that doesn't make them silver mines.

Cheers,

JohnnyM

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Nice idea going on it's main mineral, or most mines will be mixture.
Ganister was worked in it's own right in the UK with coal being taken as the secondary mineral, but I'm ok classing fireclay and ganister as coal mines.

What about when say a mine originally worked one mineral (eg lead) then closed and was re-opened and worked for another mineral (eg fluorite) happened quite alot in Peak District lead mines.

Do we classify on the original working or the most productivity? or something else?

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erm..
Burtersett slate mine, not orficially slate.. sandstone flags actually.. so that's another 😉

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Nice idea going on it's main mineral, or most mines will be mixture.
Ganister was worked in it's own right in the UK with coal being taken as the secondary mineral, but I'm ok classing fireclay and ganister as coal mines.

What about when say a mine originally worked one mineral (eg lead) then closed and was re-opened and worked for another mineral (eg fluorite) happened quite alot in Peak District lead mines.

Do we classify on the original working or the most productivity? or something else?

It's getting very difficult to decide how best to approach this :)

I want the site to be as user friendly as possible, but it needs to appeal to people with a good knowledge of minerals and/or mines as well as be accessible to people without that knowledge or just starting out. I don't want to put people off learning about the industry and it's heritage.

I'm therefore reluctant for it to get too 'techy', a mine might well of extracted various ores or a metal with various chemical names, but if it was commonly known as 'lead' (for example) I think we should stick to classifying it as a lead mine.

Taking LeeW's example there, IF a mine was worked as Ganister in it's own right then I guess it's correct to classify it as Ganister and not coal. Especially as if that's the case and somebody is looking for that mine they are going to have a fairly good level of knowledge to be searching for it, and should therefore find it under the correct classification. If Ganister was a secondary product to coal then it is/was a coal mine.

Ulitimately however the decision is with the person who adds the mine to the database. This could lead to a mine being classified as Coal or Ganister. However with the multiple methods of sarching mines (region, area, landranger, show all, search and name search) I'm sure people will find the mines they are looking for.

Where a product had a regional or by-product name, such as Ashford Black Marble then we'll stick to classifying it as a Limestone quarry.

For metal mines, as JohnnyM says, stick to the common name of the ore they were refining.

Don't forget the Description field can be used to explain more about a mine / quarry. For example if the quarried limestone was polished and sold as Ashford Black Marble, or if small quantities of silver were produced alongside lead.

So I think the list is:

- Bitumen (or should this be bituminous coal)

- Cobalt

- Umber (I don't know enough to know if this is materially different to Ochre which is already in the database)

- Ganister

- Calcite

- Marble (i.e. marble proper)

Hope I've not confused the issue even more!

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It should just be Bitumen.

For example natural bitumen was collected in the Tar Tunnel in Ironbridge through the 18th & 19th Century.

It's a substance that crops up in some mines, I know of bits in Snailbeach (Lead & Baryte)

Not wishing to mess things up too much, but... why not have a generic 'Metal' mine for the ones that we can't agree whether they're copper, zinc or whatever?

And yes, Blue John is unique to whichever mine it was I visited a couple of years back, when swmbo had to physically restrain me from vanishing down a manway that had a 'No Entry' sign on it. For all the loveliness and pretty colour of Blue John, they seem capable of making the most horrible souvenirs you could imagine out of the stuff.

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Not wishing to mess things up too much, but... why not have a generic 'Metal' mine for the ones that we can't agree whether they're copper, zinc or whatever?

I hope it'll always be possible to select a main mineral? I don't like the idea of 'metal mine', if we took that argument to the extreme we could classify them all as 'mines' 😮 :lol:

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Nice idea going on it's main mineral, or most mines will be mixture.
Ganister was worked in it's own right in the UK with coal being taken as the secondary mineral, but I'm ok classing fireclay and ganister as coal mines.

What about when say a mine originally worked one mineral (eg lead) then closed and was re-opened and worked for another mineral (eg fluorite) happened quite alot in Peak District lead mines.

Do we classify on the original working or the most productivity? or something else?

It's getting very difficult to decide how best to approach this :)

I want the site to be as user friendly as possible, but it needs to appeal to people with a good knowledge of minerals and/or mines as well as be accessible to people without that knowledge or just starting out. I don't want to put people off learning about the industry and it's heritage.

I'm therefore reluctant for it to get too 'techy', a mine might well of extracted various ores or a metal with various chemical names, but if it was commonly known as 'lead' (for example) I think we should stick to classifying it as a lead mine.

Taking LeeW's example there, IF a mine was worked as Ganister in it's own right then I guess it's correct to classify it as Ganister and not coal. Especially as if that's the case and somebody is looking for that mine they are going to have a fairly good level of knowledge to be searching for it, and should therefore find it under the correct classification. If Ganister was a secondary product to coal then it is/was a coal mine.

Ulitimately however the decision is with the person who adds the mine to the database. This could lead to a mine being classified as Coal or Ganister. However with the multiple methods of sarching mines (region, area, landranger, show all, search and name search) I'm sure people will find the mines they are looking for.

Where a product had a regional or by-product name, such as Ashford Black Marble then we'll stick to classifying it as a Limestone quarry.

For metal mines, as JohnnyM says, stick to the common name of the ore they were refining.

Don't forget the Description field can be used to explain more about a mine / quarry. For example if the quarried limestone was polished and sold as Ashford Black Marble, or if small quantities of silver were produced alongside lead.

So I think the list is:

- Bitumen (or should this be bituminous coal)

- Cobalt

- Umber (I don't know enough to know if this is materially different to Ochre which is already in the database)

- Ganister

- Calcite

- Marble (i.e. marble proper)

Hope I've not confused the issue even more!

He's right, of course (I have to say that), but I don't know of any cobalt mines in the UK (most of it comes from the Congo, Zambia, Russia, Canada & Orstrilia). Does anyone else? Is AN going to encompass mining worldwide...?

TTFN

JM

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I don't know of any cobalt mines in the UK (most of it comes from the Congo, Zambia, Russia, Canada & Orstrilia). Does anyone else? Is AN going to encompass mining worldwide...?

TTFN

JM

We have a Cobalt mine in the Lake District

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I'll add those all tonight then :)

What about Bitumen, is that correct as Bitumen or as Bituminous coal?

Any others while I'm at it 🙂

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Hang on a minute while I just go and eat my own liver...

Indeed you do: Scar Crag, somewhere near Causey Pike. Cobalt iron nickel arsenates or some such. I think advancing age and too much red wine has fried my memory...

JM

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As far as I am ware, Bitumen is a product of the distilling of Crude Oil rather than a product that mined

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Hang on a minute while I just go and eat my own liver...
JM

Dont forget the fava beans & the fine chianti.. :lol:
I'll add the mine to the DB tonight if I get chance ..

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I knew that much 🙂 Lowest fraction and all that...

But there is also a mined product known as (I think) either Bituminous roack or Bituminous coal.

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I'll add those all tonight then :)

What about Bitumen, is that correct as Bitumen or as Bituminous coal?

Any others while I'm at it :)

If you look at the post I made earlier........

It's just the same when I'm in the pub, just too softly spoken.

In fact just to stir things up... I saw a reference to an opal mine in the Cairngorms!

If you look at the post I made earlier........

It's just the same when I'm in the pub, just too softly spoken.

Sorry, sorry 😞

OK, those all sorted tonight...

Any raise on the 6?

And is umber differnt to ochre (apologies if I sound ignorant there, neither are slate...)

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