NEW COORDINATES AS OF 6-19-05
In the beginning of Iron Ore mining in northern Minnesota in the 1800’s, shafts were formed by drilling, blasting, and removing the loose pieces. Most core drills on the Iron Range could take core samples only inches in diameter.
Branner Newsome, a mining engineer, invented a bore drill (the world’s largest at the time) that could create a five-and-one-half foot diameter hole, eliminating the need for explosives to sink shafts.
In 1938, at the Zenith Mine in Ely, MN, a hole using this drill was drilled to the 12th level (1200 ft) so that a cage and skip could be built for men and ore. This took, 7 months of drilling through extremely hard greenstone and chert. The shaft at the Zenith was the second one drilled by this bore drill and was the deepest and widest at that time. The core was taken out in sections. There are pieces in Minnesota at the University Mining Building, the Chisholm Mining Museum, and here in Ely at the Zenith Mine location, now R&R transfer. The piece of core you see above ground weighs approximately 11 TONS-
It is wrapped in plastic before homecoming and Halloween and taken off after graduation from both the high school and college to avoid damage.
TO GET CREDIT FOR THIS CACHE, SEND AN EMAIL TO ME Answering this problem: BASED ON YOUR HEIGHT OR SOMEONE IN YOUR GROUP, EMAIL ME THE ESTIMATED HEIGHT OF THE CORE IN FEET- DO NOT INCLUDE THE CONCRETE SLAB. FAILURE TO EMAIL ME THE ANSWER AT THE TIME YOU LOG THE CACHE WILL RESULT IN YOUR LOG BEING DELETED