3 ms·

There are roughly 85,000 mines in the U.S. Of those, 62,000 are outright abandoned. Rest are either nonproducing, temporarily idled, sealed, or intermittently

by pp19dd 8y ago

There are roughly 85,000 mines in the U.S. Of those, 62,000 are outright abandoned. Rest are either nonproducing, temporarily idled, sealed, or intermittently active. Only about 6,300 are currently active. It's not a limited resource problem but a profitability problem. Think the main article's point is that you probably want to research diversifying now before a resource squeeze forces you to catch-up.

dredmorbius 8y ago
There was a specific policy of discouraging mining in the U.S. sometime mid-century or earlier. The history of mining in the West can be pieced together from hundreds of different online sources. The BLM spins the story that all the old mines have all been worked out and that is why they were abandoned, which is believable, but certainly not the case, although some mines have been worked out. http://www.miningartifacts.org/Mining-Photo-Index.html http://www.miningartifacts.org/Mining-Photo-Index.html has a brief history of mining by state. Executive Order 6102 made it illegal for a U.S. Citizens to hold or own more than $100 in gold; coins, bullion or otherwise. It allowed the Federal government to seize gold and required citizens to turn in all of their gold, at the face value of $20.67 per ounce, or face up to 10 years in Prison and or a $10,000 fine. Later Executive order L-208 essentially banned all non-essential mining operations. Gold and Silver mines being paramount on that list. Later expensive bonds were required before a new mine could be cut, which limited new mining to well funded mining companies. All of these contributed to the end of most small scale mining. Source: https://plus.google.com/+NationalbureauofminesOrg1/posts/fDhd3KfXt5u https://plus.google.com/+NationalbureauofminesOrg1/posts/fDh...
- pp19dd 8y ago
  Hmm, maybe I didn't observe that effect. First order went into effect in 1933, and second in 1942. The mine closures seem to be pretty well distributed since then, implying a healthy amount of openings and closures yearly, totaling a summed inventory of 80k mines in the states. Anyhow, ignoring mines prior to 1970, this is the pattern of distribution of mine closures: 1971 475 closures 1972 725 " 1973 692 " 1974 455 " 1975 711 " 1976 1,406 " 1977 1,248 " 1978 2,750 " 1979 5,378 " 1980 4,232 " 1981 2,901 " 1982 3,681 " 1983 2,598 " 1984 2,990 " 1985 4,401 " 1986 2,539 " 1987 1,944 " 1988 2,007 " 1989 1,855 " 1990 1,805 " 1991 1,879 " 1992 1,705 " 1993 1,425 " 1994 1,329 " 1995 1,212 " 1996 1,116 " 1997 1,013 " 1998 994 " 1999 1,151 " 2000 1,041 " 2001 1,368 " 2002 1,521 " 2003 1,450 " 2004 1,266 " 2005 1,298 " 2006 1,431 " 2007 1,465 " 2008 1,564 " 2009 1,664 " 2010 1,669 " 2011 1,894 " 2012 2,371 " 2013 2,752 " 2014 3,636 " 2015 2,622 " So overall, a fairly steady figure. I imagine they'd go at it until a mine was played out, at least in the economic/profitability sense.

by pp19dd 8y ago

dredmorbius 8y ago

There was a specific policy of discouraging mining in the U.S. sometime mid-century or earlier. The history of mining in the West can be pieced together from hundreds of different online sources. The BLM spins the story that all the old mines have all been worked out and that is why they were abandoned, which is believable, but certainly not the case, although some mines have been worked out. http://www.miningartifacts.org/Mining-Photo-Index.html http://www.miningartifacts.org/Mining-Photo-Index.html has a brief history of mining by state. Executive Order 6102 made it illegal for a U.S. Citizens to hold or own more than $100 in gold; coins, bullion or otherwise. It allowed the Federal government to seize gold and required citizens to turn in all of their gold, at the face value of $20.67 per ounce, or face up to 10 years in Prison and or a $10,000 fine. Later Executive order L-208 essentially banned all non-essential mining operations. Gold and Silver mines being paramount on that list. Later expensive bonds were required before a new mine could be cut, which limited new mining to well funded mining companies. All of these contributed to the end of most small scale mining. Source: https://plus.google.com/+NationalbureauofminesOrg1/posts/fDhd3KfXt5u https://plus.google.com/+NationalbureauofminesOrg1/posts/fDh...

pp19dd 8y ago
Hmm, maybe I didn't observe that effect. First order went into effect in 1933, and second in 1942. The mine closures seem to be pretty well distributed since then, implying a healthy amount of openings and closures yearly, totaling a summed inventory of 80k mines in the states. Anyhow, ignoring mines prior to 1970, this is the pattern of distribution of mine closures: 1971 475 closures 1972 725 " 1973 692 " 1974 455 " 1975 711 " 1976 1,406 " 1977 1,248 " 1978 2,750 " 1979 5,378 " 1980 4,232 " 1981 2,901 " 1982 3,681 " 1983 2,598 " 1984 2,990 " 1985 4,401 " 1986 2,539 " 1987 1,944 " 1988 2,007 " 1989 1,855 " 1990 1,805 " 1991 1,879 " 1992 1,705 " 1993 1,425 " 1994 1,329 " 1995 1,212 " 1996 1,116 " 1997 1,013 " 1998 994 " 1999 1,151 " 2000 1,041 " 2001 1,368 " 2002 1,521 " 2003 1,450 " 2004 1,266 " 2005 1,298 " 2006 1,431 " 2007 1,465 " 2008 1,564 " 2009 1,664 " 2010 1,669 " 2011 1,894 " 2012 2,371 " 2013 2,752 " 2014 3,636 " 2015 2,622 " So overall, a fairly steady figure. I imagine they'd go at it until a mine was played out, at least in the economic/profitability sense.