Drag to turn the globe

Mines/Spain

Almaden mercury mines

Almaden mercury mines, Spain. Heritage site, underground, mining mercury.

Why Almaden mercury mines is famous

Worked since Roman times for about two thousand years and said to have supplied about one third of all the mercury used by humans. Mining closed in 2003 and the Almaden Mining Park joined the World Heritage List in 2012 with Idrija.1,2

Story cards

Almaden mercury mines today

Mining in Spain

Where next

Sources

  1. The Almaden mines, a World Heritage Site marked by Islamic heritage Fundacion Cultura Islamica (funci.org)
  2. Wikidata item Q24633844 (Almaden Mine) Wikidata (CC0)

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

Keep exploring

Stories with these minerals

All mining storiesThe world runs on rockAll mineralsMining by country

Pictures: Timna in de Negevwoestijn; rotspartij "de zuilen van Salomo", Poll, Willem van de / Europeana (Public Domain Mark 1.0); Potosi, Bolivia, NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space Systems, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (Public domain (NASA media, no copyright)); Earth Observations taken by the Expedition 15 Crew, NASA JSC (Public domain (NASA media, no copyright)).