The Elizabeth Mine was a

copper mine Copper extraction refers to the methods used to obtain copper from its ores. The conversion of copper consists of a series of physical and electrochemical processes. Methods have evolved and vary with country depending on the ore source, loca ...

located on the town line between the Town of Strafford and the Town of

Thetford Thetford is a market town and civil parish in the Breckland District of Norfolk, England. It is on the A11 road between Norwich and London, just east of Thetford Forest. The civil parish, covering an area of , in 2015 had a population of 24,340 ...

, in

Orange County, Vermont Orange County is a county located in the U.S. state of Vermont. As of the 2020 census, the population was 29,277. Its shire town (county seat) is the town of Chelsea. Orange County was organized on February 2, 1781, as an original county with ...

. The ore deposit was discovered in 1793, but mining did not start until 1809.

Open pit mining Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mining ...

and from 1886 underground mining was conducted. The mine produced up to of copper (1954) and was closed in 1957. Due to

acid mine drainage Acid mine drainage, acid and metalliferous drainage (AMD), or acid rock drainage (ARD) is the outflow of acidic water from metal mines or coal mines. Acid rock drainage occurs naturally within some environments as part of the rock weathering ...

the west branch of the

Ompompanoosuc River The Ompompanoosuc River is a river, about 25 mi (40 km) long, in eastern Vermont in the United States. It is a tributary of the Connecticut River, which flows to Long Island Sound. According to the Geographic Names Information System, ...

was polluted. Since 2000 the

Environmental Protection Agency A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...

(EPA) and the

Vermont Agency of Natural Resources Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the n ...

have been developing a plan to clean up the area.

Geology

The ore deposits at the Elizabeth Mine represent classic examples of sedimentary exhalative type deposition where hydrothermal fluids enter the marine environment and precipitate out minerals in a strataform ore body. The ores are hosted in the strongly deformed Lower

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, whe ...

Gile Mountain Formation (a grey to dark grey mica

schist Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock showing pronounced schistosity. This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a low-power hand lens, oriented in such a way that the rock is easily split into thin flakes o ...

). The ore body at the Elizabeth Mine is a massive sulfide deposit consisting primarily of

pyrrhotite Pyrrhotite is an iron sulfide mineral with the formula Fe(1-x)S (x = 0 to 0.2). It is a nonstoichiometric variant of FeS, the mineral known as troilite. Pyrrhotite is also called magnetic pyrite, because the color is similar to pyrite and it is ...

and

chalcopyrite Chalcopyrite ( ) is a copper iron sulfide mineral and the most abundant copper ore mineral. It has the chemical formula CuFeS2 and crystallizes in the tetragonal system. It has a brassy to golden yellow color and a hardness of 3.5 to 4 on the Mo ...

References

External links

South Strafford’s Elizabeth Copper Mine: The Tyson Years, 1880–1902

The Geology of the Elizabeth Mine, Peter Howard, 1969Geologic Map of the Elizabeth Mine Area (Stratford, VT)
*{{HAER , survey=VT-35 , id=vt0130 , title=Elizabeth Mine, Mine Road, South Strafford, Orange County, VT , photos=66 , dwgs=4 , data=89 , cap=11 Geology of Vermont Copper mines in the United States Historic American Engineering Record in Vermont Superfund sites in Vermont Mining in Vermont Orange County, Vermont

Geology

See also

References

External links