Friday, June 12, 2009

Two Years Ago Today: Ruth Headframe

Two years ago today, the Ruth headframe was standing in its usual spot over the Deep Ruth Shaft - possibly not its original location - beside the road, the cut-off between the town of Ruth and Highway 6 toward Lund and Currant. The headframe has since been taken down.

These photos were shot from an unusual perspective: from the top of a nearby mine dump. Location of the headframe can be seen on this MSRMaps map.


It was sping, and the Purshia tridentata was in full bloom, growing on the strongly iron-oxide-rich to pyritic dirt. I hesitate to call it soil - see what I mean in the first photo - it must classify as an inceptisol if something can grown on it.

3 comments:

Lockwood said...

Very cool! I love poking around in tailings, though the holes themselves can make me nervous. I won't give you no steenkin' reminder, but you are planning on coming along in the time warp, aren't you?

Silver Fox said...

It's quite cool, if I may say so myself! The dumps are dumps, though, not tailings. Tailings are the tails that come out of a mill. They are usually very fine, fairly well-sorted, and are often found behind tailings dams or former dams. FYI! :)

As for the Wedge, I know you're getting impatient, so I'll put it up today! It was driving me nuts for a while, don't know why. Maybe I'm just nuts!

Lockwood said...

Ahh. Thanks the terminology clarification. Tailings and dumps are obviously two very different things, but I guess I've been using "tailings" for both since I started using the term. Tailings aren't so interesting... and it lends a whole 'nother layer of humor to my younger behavior (when I had a need to carry home every single rock I found) and the phrase "taking a dump." :) back atcha!

Looking forward to your post!