Old Gunnislake Mine, Clitters United Mines, Gunnislake, Calstock, Cornwall, England, UKi

Regional Level Types
Old Gunnislake Mine	Mine (Built Over)
Clitters United Mines	Group of Mines
Gunnislake	Village
Calstock	Civil Parish
Cornwall	County
England	Constituent Country
UK	Country

This site was right in the middle of Gunnislake village and famed for the diversity of its minerals. The site was cleared and built over in the late 1970s and the early 1980s.

Peter Trebilcock reports on the removal of the mine dumps at https://www.mindat.org/mesg-272373.html:

"It was my father's firm that had the job of removing the tips in the village and used much of the waste to level the local football field, possibly now one of the hottest pitches in the UK. He used to collect them [i.e. mineral specimens] by the bucketful and keep them in his machine ready for the visiting mineral collectors/dealers."

An adit level is driven from the river bank, initially in the killas heading slightly north of due west following the copper lode, evidence of which is clear in the site photos. Copper mineralisation apparently stops well short of the granite-killas boundary (photo) and the drive further into the granite is also barren. About 20 yards (ca. 18 m) from the boundary, the adit turns sharply to almost due north.

The granite-killas boundary marks the re-appearance of the main lode, which has been exploited to the west. This initially follows the contact, but then drives into the granite. Along the drive of the original adit, a second mineral vein appears about 10 yards (ca. 9 m) into the granite, but this has only been exploited for about 20 yards (ca. 18 m) to the west.

On the main drive to the west the mineralisation quickly ends and there is then another patch of barren ground before the lode reappears, heaved slightly to the north. Here the lode is very rich in copper (photo) as well as dark purple fluorite with lenses of arsenopyrite. Wolframite appears here as blades up to 2 inches (ca. 5 cm) long as pegmatites in quartz.

The only stoping on this adit level is at the far end of the drive, where the lode is most extensive. There is then a short brick tunnel, blocked at the far end, which gave access to one of the 2 shafts which reached this level. At this point there is also a flooded winze to a lower level.

The adit is quite radioactive, counts rising to about 100/ second within 50 yards (ca. 46 m) of the portal and remaining so throughout the works except in the barren ground on the main drive to the west where counts in excess of 200/ second prevail. However, no localisations of radioactive sources were detected throughout the workings.

Geochronology

Geologic Time				Rocks, Minerals and Events
Phanerozoic
	Paleozoic
		Permian
			Guadalupian	ⓘ Major polymetallic mineralization ~270 Ma Cornwall, England, UK
			Cisuralian	ⓘ Porphyry dikes intruded (latest age) ~275 Ma Cornwall, England, UK ⓘ Greisenization (latest age) ~280 Ma Cornwall, England, UK ⓘ Porphyry dikes intruded (earliest age) ~280 Ma Cornwall, England, UK ⓘ Formation of metallized pegmatites ~285 Ma Cornwall, England, UK ⓘ Greisenization (earliest age) ~285 Ma Cornwall, England, UK ⓘ Emplacement of major plutons ~295 Ma Cornwall, England, UK

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References