# Lochaline Silica Mine, Morvern - Dec. 2011



## BenCooper (Jan 1, 2012)

Lochaline is a pretty wee village in, basically, the middle of nowhere - when you need to take a ferry and drive down 20 miles of singletrack to get somewhere, it's very un-urban exploring!





But what Lochaline has is a silica mine - opened in 1940 to meet the wartime need of silica to make optical quality glass, the sandstone in the mine is very pure. The mine closed in 2008, but is reopening in the spring.





What's odd is that the mine is full of cars! Old wrecked ones, used to get about in the mine, and shoved into side passages when they finally died.





The mine is huge - 48km of tunnels, covering 370 acres, and capable of producing 100,000 tonnes per year - destined mostly for Pilkington's solar panel production, apparently.





















I thought these were explosives at first! They're not - they're resin for roof bracing.





















On the surface, the processing equipment is all ready to go, and the silica sand goes out by sea.









That's all, folks


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## lost (Jan 2, 2012)

Nice photos Ben.
Any signs of life there?


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## Andymacg (Jan 2, 2012)

nice work there ben as usual


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## TeeJF (Jan 2, 2012)

Looks great Ben! Happy New Year...


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## Krypton (Jan 2, 2012)

I really love those cars


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## BenCooper (Jan 2, 2012)

Thanks 

Lost - there was a bloke walking a cat on a piece of string - apart from that, no!


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## Krypton (Jan 2, 2012)

BenCooper said:


> Lost - there was a bloke walking a cat on a piece of string - apart from that, no!





Thats the Scottish out back for you LOL


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## urban phantom (Jan 2, 2012)

great report mate loved the old cars thanks for sharing


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## King Al (Jan 2, 2012)

Superb as usual ben, like the old cars and the tractor


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## tank2020 (Jan 2, 2012)

Smashing pics, thanks


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## oldscrote (Jan 2, 2012)

That's a very very impressive hole, thanks for sharing.


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## smiler (Jan 2, 2012)

Fantastic Ben, I enjoyed it enormously, Thanks, have a happy and safe New Year.


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## Coal Cutter (Jan 2, 2012)

That is a class set of pics. The strata is interesting, not something I have seen in other mines. Any idea what rock it is driven through? Some parts look a bit like flint.


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## Ratters (Jan 2, 2012)

that looks so cool down there.


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## manof2worlds (Jan 2, 2012)

8-O

Awesome.


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## lost (Jan 2, 2012)

There's a lot more to see down there as well.


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## BenCooper (Jan 2, 2012)

lost said:


> There's a lot more to see down there as well.



Yes, I've seen from other reports - I only had a couple of hours, and only really tried adit 1, it's definitely worth more time...


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## UrbanX (Jan 2, 2012)

Love it, first shot is epic!


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## crickleymal (Jan 3, 2012)

Nice photos. I wish I'd known it was there when we visited Mull a couple of years ago.


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## night crawler (Jan 3, 2012)

An amazeing palce never seen a mine like that before, and the old cars. Just a shame there were wrecked they would be a retorers dream.


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## oldscrote (Jan 3, 2012)

Coal Cutter said:


> That is a class set of pics. The strata is interesting, not something I have seen in other mines. Any idea what rock it is driven through? Some parts look a bit like flint.



The geology is here amongst a whole lot of other info about the place

http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/289085/details/lochaline+silica+sand+mine/


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