Geevor Tin Mine

Geevor Tin Mine is a tin mining museum/heritage centre in the far south west of Cornwall, left as a living history of a working tin mine. It is between the villages of Pendeen and Trewellard. It has on its site a shop with tin-related souvenirs and books. A cafe overlooks the Atlantic Ocean. Entry to the shop and cafe is free. There are guides to take small groups of people around the tin mine. There are some really interesting children's activities in the tour waiting area eg: panning for gold and other precious gemstones which you can bag up and take away with you. The museum is an Anchor Point of ERIH, The European Route of Industrial Heritage.

History

Tin and copper were mined in earnest from the general area of Geevor since at least the late 1700s. Geevor Tin Mines Ltd was formed in 1911 when a group of expat. Cornish miners returned from South Africa after the second Boer War, leased the area and conducted more thorough prospecting.

The Wethered shaft was begun in 1909 and initial development occurred around it. By 1920, the works were moving west (toward the coastline) and the Victory shaft was sunk approximately 540 metres to the north-west. Both shafts were in use until 1944, when working through Wethered was discontinued.

The Geevor No.2 Branch Lode strikes out westerly from the Victory Shaft complex and after about 600 metres, merges into the Levant North Lode, which continues out under the Atlantic Ocean as part of that mine.

During the 1960s, around 270 staff were employed by the mine, not all underground.

The bottom fell out of the tin market in 1985 and there was a dramatic price crash. The mine struggled on for a few more years but the pumps were finally switched off in 1991. The mine is not geologically exhausted of tin, it is exhausted of tin that is recoverable economically.

Geology

The mine's lodes were located in an outer zone of coarse grained biotite granite of Carboniferous age, intruded into surrounding Devonian age "killas" - a series of metamorphosed sedimentary and volcanic rocks, visible to the north west of the mine around the cliffs. As the influence of the granitic emplacement increases toward the contact zone, the killas becomes spotted with cordierite, then mica-rich phyllites and finally at the contact, banded hornfels and tourmaline schist.

The tin appears as cassiterite (with around 65-70% tin), within veins associated with quartz, tourmaline, metal sulphides and fluorite. The veins are predominantly in a north west - south east orientation and the cassiterite itself forms around 1% of the vein material.

References

Geevor: Proceedings of the 9th Commonwealth Mining and Metallurgical Congress, May 1969.

ee also

*List of topics related to Cornwall
*Mining in Cornwall
*Tin mining on Dartmoor, Devon
*South Crofty Tin Mine

External links

* [http://www.geevor.com/ Geevor web site]
* [http://www.cornish-mining.org.uk/sites/geevor.htm Geevor] page at Cornish Mining
* [http://crocat.cornwall.gov.uk/dserve/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqCmd=Overview.tcl&dsqSearch=((text)='geevor') Cornwall Record Office Online Catalogue for Geevor]