Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Michigan Technological University

Michigan Tech Publications

Mining

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Copper-Rich “Halo” Off Lake Superior's Keweenaw Peninsula And How Mass Mill Tailings Dispersed Onto Tribal Lands, W. Charles Kerfoot, Noel Urban, Jaebong Jeong, Carol Maclennan, Sophia Ford Jan 2020

Copper-Rich “Halo” Off Lake Superior's Keweenaw Peninsula And How Mass Mill Tailings Dispersed Onto Tribal Lands, W. Charles Kerfoot, Noel Urban, Jaebong Jeong, Carol Maclennan, Sophia Ford

Michigan Tech Publications

Over a century ago, shoreline copper mills sluiced more than 64 million metric tonnes of tailings into Lake Superior, creating a “halo” around the Keweenaw Peninsula with a buried copper peak. Here we examine how tailings from one of the smaller mills (Mass Mill, 1902–1919) spread as a dual pulse across southern Keweenaw Bay and onto tribal L'Anse Indian Reservation lands. The fine (“slime clay”) fraction dispersed early and widely, whereas the coarse fraction (stamp sands) moved more slowly southward as a black sand beach deposit, leaving scattered residual patches. Beach stamp sands followed the path of sand eroding from …


Boom, Bust And Beyond: Arts And Sustainability In Calumet, Michigan, Richelle Winkler, Lorri Oikarinen, Heather L. Simpson, Melissa Michaelson, Mayra Sanchez Gonzalez Mar 2016

Boom, Bust And Beyond: Arts And Sustainability In Calumet, Michigan, Richelle Winkler, Lorri Oikarinen, Heather L. Simpson, Melissa Michaelson, Mayra Sanchez Gonzalez

Michigan Tech Publications

Cycles of boom and bust plague mining communities around the globe, and decades after the bust the skeletons of shrunken cities remain. This article evaluates strategies for how former mining communities cope and strive for sustainability in the decades well beyond the bust, using a case study of Calumet, Michigan. In 1910, Calumet was at the center of the mining industry in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but in the century since its peak, mining employment steadily declined until the last mine closed in 1968, and the population declined by over 80%. This paper explores challenges, opportunities, and progress toward …