Educational Mining Trail Přebuz
Panský důl (Manor Mine)
Educational Mining Trail Přebuz
The romantic, wooded hillside of Hartelsberg is wildly jagged by surface excavations and depressions incurred by collapse of underground stopes. This place has always been called Zechengebirg (“Mining District”). Tin ore were mined there from the mid-16th century until 1815. Old stopes are arranged into 44 parallel rows bearings the Přebuz deposit direction, i.e. northeast-southwest. The course and width of surface workings faithfully replicate the course of mineralized zones. Cold air descends into deep vertical stopes in granite massif. The snow here often stays until June. Zechengebirg territory covers a vast area. Originally reached up to Přebuz but was leveled and used as terraced agricultural parcels.
Mining relief in Zechengebirge (after Stein 1942 in Kratochvíl 1954)
Groundwater and soaked surface water in tin mines were pumped into the St. Elizabeth drainage adit. From this adit, water flows by gravity into the valley of the Rotavský Stream. In Zechengebirg, the most lucrative were Johannes, Bear and Manor mines in the 18th century.
Old surface stope with cave ice (Photo by P. Uhlík)
In 1930ies, an exploratory adit was excavated from the Otto Mine below the Zechengebirg on a depth of 60 m. It was found that partially collapsed old stopes extend to a depth of 65 m and contain very dangerous volumes of water. In the forest at the bottom of the small valley originated an extensive multi-level depression. In its bottom, the creek disappears like in karst sinkholes and leak out again at the collapse in the drainage adit in the valley of the Rotava Stream.
Old surface stope in Zechengebirge
This text was written by Petr Rojík.
