New Jersey Zinc Company Historical Collection (Virginia)

Dates

Acquisition: 2018
Repository Created: 2019-08-31
Begin Position: 1902
End Position: 1981
Repository Updated: 2022-03-31

Summary

The New Jersey Zinc Company Historical Collection contains details of mining operations at the Austinville-Ivanhoe underground lead-zinc mines located in Wythe County in southwestern Virginia from 1902 to 1981. This site also operated under the name Bertha Mineral Company. The records pertain mainly to the historic Austinville-Ivanhoe underground lead-zinc mines located in Wythe County. The site produced zinc and lead from underground mines in the historic Austinville-Ivanhoe mineral district located in Wythe County. During this nearly 80-year span of continuous mine operations near Austinville, the company also conducted base metals exploration in other regions of Virginia, including the Timberville lead-zinc district in Rockingham [...]

Summary

The New Jersey Zinc Company Historical Collection contains details of mining operations at the Austinville-Ivanhoe underground lead-zinc mines located in Wythe County in southwestern Virginia from 1902 to 1981. This site also operated under the name Bertha Mineral Company. The records pertain mainly to the historic Austinville-Ivanhoe underground lead-zinc mines located in Wythe County.

The site produced zinc and lead from underground mines in the historic Austinville-Ivanhoe mineral district located in Wythe County. During this nearly 80-year span of continuous mine operations near Austinville, the company also conducted base metals exploration in other regions of Virginia, including the Timberville lead-zinc district in Rockingham County, and within the gold-pyrite belt in Louisa and Buckingham Counties. Near the peak of production in 1974, New Jersey Zinc Company reported recoverable zinc and lead valued at about $13.8 million for the year (Shirley and LeVan, 1975), and employed about 200 mine workers. The Austinville-Ivanhoe mine and extended lead-zinc district is of significant historical interest. Following the discovery of lead ore by Colonel John Chiswell in 1756, mining continued over the next 225 years, producing lead shot used during the Revolutionary War (1775-1783) and the Civil War (1861-1865) (Brown and Weinberg, 1968; Whisonant, 1996). Overall production from the district is estimated to be over 1.2 million tons of lead and zinc concentrates from the primary ore minerals galena and sphalerite (Foley and Craig, 1989). Agricultural lime was then and is today sold as a by-product. When New Jersey Zinc Company ceased mining operations in 1981, the remaining mineable reserve was about 900,000 tons of lead and zinc ore (DMR, 1981).

Data sets in this collection include surface and underground Maps, Cross Sections, Aerial Photographs, Ore Reserve records, Monthly Reports, Drill Logs, Field Notebooks, miscellameous items as well as a collection of photographs compiled by the Virginia Department of Energy with funding from USGS NGGDPP from 2018-2021. Although each dataset collection is unique, they contain related information relevant to location or date. For example, a drill log in the Drill Logs Collection contains downhole details for specific boreholes which can be located on maps in the Mine Maps Collection and described within the Ore Reserve Collection. Cross sections in the Stope and Cross Sections Collection illustrate mine data that may be located on maps in the Mine Maps collection, and expanded on in the Ore Reserve Collections.

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Contacts

Data Owner :: Virginia Division of Geology and Mineral Resources
Principal Investigator :: Chrissi Wood-Smith

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DataPres_GeoMap.jpg “Image”	81.34 KB	image/jpeg
AerialPhotos.csv “CSV”	449.67 KB	text/csv
AustinvilleAuthors.xlsx “List of authors ”	16.31 KB	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
FieldNotebooks.csv “CSV”	226.76 KB	text/csv
AerialPhotosDataDictionary.xlsx “Data Dictionary”	12.63 KB	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
DrillLogsDataDictionary.xlsx “Data Dictionary”	12.57 KB	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
FieldNotebooksDataDictionary.xlsx “Data Dictionary”	12.48 KB	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
DrillLogs.csv “CSV”	5.38 MB	text/csv
Maps.csv “CSV”	829.97 KB	text/csv
MapsDataDictionary.xlsx “Data Dictionary”	12.34 KB	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
OreReserves.csv “CSV”	185.96 KB	text/csv
OreReservesDataDictionary.xlsx “Data Dictionary”	12.49 KB	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
MonthlyReports.csv “CSV”	80.46 KB	text/csv
DrillLogs2020.csv “Updated CSV”	173.6 KB	text/csv
MonthlyReportsDataDictionary.xlsx “Data Dictionary”	12.42 KB	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
Miscellaneous.csv “CSV”	282.06 KB	text/csv
MiscellaneousDataDictionary.xlsx “Data Dictionary”	25.2 KB	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
SectionsDataDictionary.xlsx “Data Dictionary”	25.71 KB	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
SectionsTest.csv	4.88 KB	text/csv
PhotosDataDictionary.xlsx	15.11 KB	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
Photos.csv	209.94 KB	text/csv
Sections.csv	6.23 MB	text/csv
Maps2020.csv	1.85 MB	text/csv

Related External Resources

Type: Web Link

Virginia Energy	https://energy.virginia.gov/geology/geologymineralresources.shtml
The New Jersey Zinc Collection	https://energy.virginia.gov/mineral-mining/NewJerseyZincCompany.shtml
Data Preservation Project	https://energy.virginia.gov/geology/DataPreservation.shtml

Type: Web Application

Story Map	https://vadmme.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=af329e287d334b28b8245febb0b0691e

Material Request Instructions

JPG and PDF scans of images are available using BrowseGraphic Link. TIFF images of the JPGS are available upon request. Contact the Virginia Department of Energy, Division of Geology and Mineral Resources at (434) 951-6341.

Purpose

A collection of maps, underground mine plans, ore reserves, drill logs, monthly reports, photographs and other documents from the New Jersey Zinc Company's mining and exploration activities conducted in Virginia from 1902 to 1981 for use by historians, scientists and other interested persons.

New Jersey Zinc Company Historical Collection (Virginia)

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Child Items (12581)

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Attached Files

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Alphabetical