Tonglushan Copper-Iron Mine, Daye County

This is the remains of an old copper mine located in one of the China’s main mining fields that is rich in copper and iron ore. It is located in Daye County, Huangshi City, Hubei Province. The ore body lies in the uplifted portion of a Yanshanian pluton of quartz-syenite-diorite-porphyrite and along the internal and external contact zones with the marble cognate xenoliths and exotic xenoliths of the Lower Triassic Daya Group. There are 12 ore bodies (groups) of varying sizes in 3 ore belts. The mining activity in this area has a long history. Historic mining sites were discovered during recent mining. Archaeological excavations have shown that hundreds of vertical shafts, inclined shafts and staple shafts (blind shafts) with different structures were constructed using different support methods over a period of a thousand years from the Western Zhou Dynasty to Han Dynasty, and a 100-metre mine gallery with copper melting furnaces from the Early Spring and Autumn Periods was found and...