Exploring Italy's Monte Arsiccio Mine: Part 1 - (Lots Of) Surface Buildings & Equipment

I wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to exploring abandoned mines in Italy, but I did not expect them to be as impressive as they have turned out to be… This series will be the first of several abandoned mines in Italy that I have explored – and one of these was the best abandoned mine that I have ever explored by a significant margin! There will be four videos in this series on the Monte Arsiccio Mine.

For the rockheads, there is some interesting geology present at the Monte Arsiccio Mine. The basic deposits here are barite, pyrite and iron oxides. However, within these deposits, geologists have located routhierite (a rare sulfosalt) as well as ankangite, a rare member of the hollandite structural family (Google it if you wish to know more about the geology at this abandoned mine as there is plenty of geological research and reports out there on this site that are in English).

It was difficult to find much in the way of records on this mine (outside of the geology), but, as I understand it, the most recent operations at this mine ceased in 1989.

This abandoned mine is on public land in Italy. It is not private property and it is not in the middle of nowhere. It is in the Apuan Alps in Tuscany and is near a fairly large population center. Therefore, it was absolutely incredible to me to see how much equipment was still at this mine and also to even see the entrances to the mine open at all.

As impressive as this site is, I’m afraid that I might have missed some things. The blackberries and vines could easily have hidden the entrance to another adit somewhere or covered up some fantastic equipment.

*****

All of these videos are uploaded in HD, so adjust those settings to ramp up the quality! It really does make a difference…

You can click here for the full playlist of abandoned mines: https://goo.gl/TEKq9L

Thanks for watching!

*****

Growing up in California’s “Gold Rush Country” made it easy to take all of the history around us for granted. However, abandoned mine sites have a lot working against them – nature, vandals, scrappers and various government agencies… The old prospectors and miners that used to roam our lonely mountains and toil away deep underground are disappearing quickly as well.

These losses finally caught our attention and we felt compelled to make an effort to document as many of the ghost towns and abandoned mines that we could before that niche of our history is gone forever. But, you know what? We have fun doing it! This is exploring history firsthand – bushwhacking down steep canyons and over rough mountains, figuring out the techniques the miners used and the equipment they worked with, seeing the innovations they came up with, discovering lost mines that no one has been in for a century, wandering through ghost towns where the only sound is the wind... These journeys allow a feeling of connection to a time when the world was a very different place. And I’d love to think that in some small way we are paying tribute to those hardy miners that worked these mines before we were even born.

So, yes, in short, we are adit addicts… I hope you’ll join us on these adventures!

#ExploringAbandonedMines
#MineExploring
#AbandonedMines
#UndergroundMineExploring

Видео Exploring Italy's Monte Arsiccio Mine: Part 1 - (Lots Of) Surface Buildings & Equipment канала TVR Exploring