smelter near Los Blanquizales and the Punta de los Ratones, Villaricos, Sierra Almagrera, Almerķa, Andalusia, Spain

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(text and pictures by FdW)

We were driving by this locality a few times on our way to/from our appartment in El Calon towards Herrerias, El Arteal etc, and stopped because from the road you can see the smelter near the sea. The dumps here proved to be almost sterile. Some Aragonit, some Cerussit?, but not much more. On the map (Mapa Topografico Nacional de Espana no.1015-I) it only says 'mina abondanada' near Los Blanquizales and the Punta de los Ratones. Most of the mines here worked on iron/Siderit, and the slugs here are black and quite heavy, so possibly the slugs are not interesting. We looked for slugs in the sea, but we saw none.

The strange thing here are the pipes upperground, going from the top of the hill on one side of the road, to the smelter near the sea on the other side of the road. You can walk through them, but they're not black on the inside from the smoke... We first thought they were ventilation-chimneys, leading the exhaust gasses from the smelters up on the hill away from the smelter. But later we thought that it might have been meant for the opposite, leading oxigen from the top of the hill towards the smelter... But the pipes are large enough to have a small train run through it, or even a transportation-band for ore to the smelter... Strange. Can someone explain?

And it has been explained ;-) see here...

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