Forgotten Veins: Reading the Records and Risks of Abandoned Gold Mines

An abandoned mine can leave a name on a map long after its workings have closed. Forgotten Veins shows how to rebuild the history behind that name from reports, production records, geologic maps, and present-day land information.

Learn to separate mines with similar names, read old figures at their proper scale, and understand why hazardous remains deserve distance and preservation. A Keane Wonder Mine case compares federal accounts that do not give the same gold total.

The reusable mine-history dossier makes room for documented facts, conflicting claims, and unanswered questions.

• Reconstruct an old mine from reports, production records, geologic maps, and current land information.
• Separate similarly named workings and read historical numbers at the scale they support.
• Examine conflicting federal accounts of the Keane Wonder Mine without approaching hazardous remains.

Recover the history of a place while respecting its risks and unanswered questions.

See what is inside

The revised edition covers these chapters and reader resources:

• Chapter 1 — Start with a Mine Question
• Chapter 2 — Follow the Record Trail
• Chapter 3 — Are These the Same Mine?
• Chapter 4 — What Old Production Figures Mean
• Chapter 5 — Read the Geology at Its Scale
• Chapter 6 — Who Controls the Place Now?
• Chapter 7 — The Boundary Around a Hazard
• Chapter 8 — What Remains Can Tell Us
• Chapter 9 — Keane Wonder: A Records Case
• Chapter 10 — The Mine-History Dossier
• Chapter 11 — The Catalog Card and the File
• Chapter 12 — One Name, Three Records
• Chapter 13 — A Point on a Revised Map
• Chapter 14 — The Shipment's Unit
• Chapter 15 — Production Across Unequal Periods
• Chapter 16 — Names in the Payroll
• Chapter 17 — Reading a Plant Diagram
• Chapter 18 — The Photograph's Second Date
• Chapter 19 — What the Search Did Not Find
• Chapter 20 — The Patent and the Present
• Chapter 21 — The Closure File
• Chapter 22 — A Label for the Public
• Chapter 23 — Two Totals and the Next Request
• Chapter 24 — Testing the Documentary Dossier
• Mine-History Dossier Sheet