Cement Under Water

[pwdrive]

Lawrence, that 3D 'map' is incredible! How was the information gathered to create it, were all the tunnels and shafts mapped as the mines developed?
Andy

Hi Andy, the 3D computer model was done by someone who is working for the company that is trying to reopen the old South Crofty Tin Mine, I was in touch with him about something and the subject of the Fowey Consols Mine came up, next thing he had posted it on Utube.

The info required in order to do the 3D modeling would have come from the old mine plans, all those that have survived are normally to be found in the County Records Office (for coal mines see the coal authority)

There are many hundreds of plans that have survived down here (Cornwall) as have many records of mine accounts, production tonnages etc.

Some of the plans also contain sectional info as well which not only shows the depths of the shafts,raises,winzes etc but also shows the extent of the stope workings (a stope is where the bulk of the ore is actually mined, however plans showing the stope workings are less frequently to be found.

So the mines in the 3D model on Utube only had very limited sectional information in the plans that survived, hence those bits are not shown on the model.
The last one shown in the 3D sequence is the one where we are and was one of the richest copper mines in the country back in the 1840's, back then it employed upwards of 1,500 people. The 3D sequence of this mine was taken from the only known surviving plan, there is a snap shot of it (in colour) in my previous post, if you click on that and enlarge it you will see that the plan is centered around a shaft call Union Shaft that shaft attained a vertical depth of around 2,000ft, some shafts were sunk vertically 'till they intersect a lode and then followed the angle of the lode (the underlie) The thin lines in blue are the crosscut and adit levels and generally run in a north/south direction, the thin black lines are tunnels or drifts driven on the lode (the ore vien) they have numbers attatched to them which is the depth below adit in fathoms, the wider red lines that are about the width of a small brush stroke are the raises and winzes that were sunk internally between different levels an thus in most cases connecting them together, this would have been done for various reasons including ore extraction and development and also for sub level ventilation etc and proving the ore reserves at depth (no diamond drilling back then) That bit of the plan I posted is only a small section of the original, the original plan is in several 3ft x 3ft sections on some kind of cotton/silk/parchment kind of stuff, I have seen them all and these old mine plans are quite impresive.

Thus you can see from a good plan with depths, lengths, dip of the lode etc sufficient data can be extracted to do a modern 3D model.
The mine surveyor of yesteryear though would be able to interprate a 2D plan to a 3D image in is head just as we can with a circuit diagram etc.

Lawrence.