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Mines/United States

Homestake Mine

Homestake Mine, United States. Closed, underground, mining gold, silver.

Why Homestake Mine is famous

Largest and deepest gold mine in North America. The 4,850 ft level now holds an underground laboratory, and Raymond Davis ran his solar neutrino experiment there from the mid-1960s.1,2

Story cards

Timeline

  1. 1874 (expedition), rush from 1875Black Hills gold rush3

What kind of deposit

Orogenic gold (low-sulphide gold-quartz veins)

Homestake Mine today

Where gold is mined todayWhere silver is mined todayMining in United States

Where next

People

Financed byGeorge HearstThe Homestake claim was sold in 1877 to George Hearst and partners.1Investigated byThomas F. WalshHe turned down half of a Deadwood claim that became Homestake.4

Mines

ExamplesEmpire MineEmpire's deepest shaft passed 5,000 vertical feet. Homestake's lab sits on its 4,850 ft level.5

Events

Led toBlack Hills gold rushRead what happened near Homestake Mine: Black Hills gold rush.1

Places

Located inDeadwoodHomestake Mine is about 4 km from Deadwood.1

Deposit types

An example ofOrogenic gold (low-sulphide gold-quartz veins)Homestake Mine belongs to the orogenic gold family of deposits.6

Sources

  1. Homestake history Sanford Underground Research Facility
  2. Wikidata entity Q2351504
  3. Mining in South Dakota: Education Kit (PDF) South Dakota State Historical Society
  4. Hall of Fame: Thomas Walsh Mining Foundation of the Southwest
  5. Empire Mine State Historic Park California State Parks
  6. Mineral Deposit Models (Bulletin 1693, Cox and Singer, eds., 1986) US Geological Survey

Pictures on this page: George Hearst.jpg, Edouart & Cobb (Public domain).

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.

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Pictures: Gold prospectors constructing a long box with a filter for panning gold. Process print after H.M. Paget, 1899., Henry Marriott Paget (Public Domain Mark 1.0); Pangkalpinang. Mijn 3b. Een reeks koelies bezig met het transporteeren van grond, Europeana (Public Domain Mark 1.0); Kimberley, South Africa: miners and washing gear at the Bultfontein diamond mine. Woodburytype, 1888, after a photograph by Robert Harris., Harris, Robert, active 1881-1888. (Public Domain Mark 1.0); South Africa: a crowd of people gathered outside The Goldfields offices in Johannesburg. 1896., Unknown (Wellcome Collection) (Public Domain Mark 1.0).