Mining Quest

Blog, History, Mines

How Romans, monks and Saxons changed the mining world

April 22, 2020
Romans were known for their mastery to channel water via aqueducts into the cities for their public baths. This technology was useful as well to  ...

Blog, Economics, History

Metals & Mining, COVID-19 and other pandemics

March 25, 2020
One of my favourite movies is Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys, an apocalyptical vision of the virus-induced demise of almost all humanity. When  ...

Blog, Economics

Diesel as a by-product of aluminum smelting?

April 12, 2018
Having read the title, you might think I finally have gone mad, but give me some time to reason, since it might not be as crazy as it first  ...

Blog, Economics, History

Copper mine productivity from Renaissance to now

March 15, 2018
Mining productivity has always been important. I am sure that the Egyptians or Romans were thinking about it as much as we do these days.  ...

Blog, Economics, History

Boom and Bust .. an update

March 2, 2018
How time flies. It has already been six months since I posted my view on the boom and bust cyclicality in mining. At the end of it I predicted  ...

Blog, Economics, History

Boom and Bust … and back again

August 29, 2017
Recently there is more and more talk about the recovery of the mining industry. For sure, copper prices recovered, zinc is at a decades high and  ...

Blog, Mines

Potosi – medieval mining in action

July 31, 2017
I have always wanted to visit Potosi for its famed history and so I finally had the chance to do so. After all, this mine bankrolled the Spanish  ...

Blog, Mines

The Tarapaca salt mine

June 5, 2017
I always wanted to visit an open pit salt mine, for the simple fact that they are hard to find. After all, it has to be a very dry climate such  ...

Blog, Mines

Flamingoes, brines and stranded resources

May 21, 2017
There is no doubt that flamingoes love the Salar de Atacama and salt flats elsewhere. These birds love them of course not for the high salinities  ...

Blog, Mines

The Tarapaca salt mine

June 5, 2017
I always wanted to visit an open pit salt mine, for the simple fact that they are hard to find. After all, it has to be a very dry climate such that the salt is not washed away by the rain, that  ...

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