UK Grid Reference: SX572584
Latitude: 50°24'26"N
Longitude: 4°0'35"W
An abandoned open-cast tungsten mine near Plymouth in Devon - this locality is famed for its high quality scorodite (among the best in Europe) with ferberite and cassiterite. The deposit was sampled in 1982 by AMAX but problems were encountered due to difficulty of separating the clays from the ore.
On 4th December 2007 it was announced that an Australian company, Wolf Minerals LLC, had acquired the rights to mine this deposit, and current plans are to reopen the site as a full-scale opencast metal mine for tungsten and tin, producing up to 3000 tonnes of tungsten metal per year.
The mine is scheduled to resume production of tungsten and tin in 2012/13, further sampling was undertaken in April 2011, with anticipated results. Ore dressing has made advances to separating the clays.
The original name for the workings was "Hemerdon Bal", this was corrupted over time (possibly due to a mis-spelling on Ordnance Survey maps that remains to this day) to "Hemerdon Ball". The current owners refer to the deposit just as the "Hemerdon Mine".
Mineral List
19 entries listed. 16 valid minerals.
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References
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