Ecton - A British Mine at the Forefront of Technology for Three Thousand Years
Add to calChapel Lecture Theatre, Penryn Campus, University of Exeter TR10 9FE
· Introduction and setting
· Bronze age workings and artefacts that have been dated to that period
· Early use of Black Powder
· Invention of steam winding
· Importance of copper in the development of the British Empire
· Innovative pumping systems
· Modern use — Geoff Cox and MIMCU leading to EMET — Educating the next generation to provide for the green transition
· Research Unexmin project and Carlson SW testing
Nick Hardy is a Chartered Mining Engineer, who started his mining career in 1975 with a school holiday job in a fuller's earth mine near Bath. He then worked for six years for the NCB in Yorkshire before Maggie Thatcher spurred him to go to university - "I had the choice of going to uni, or going on strike". When he graduated he worked in the Derbyshire fluorspar mines for thirteen years. Since that operation closed in 1999 he has had a varied career. He was an inspector of mines and quarries in the Republic of Ireland, worked in tunnelling in Dublin, Scotland, and India. He was GM of a gold mine in Northern Ireland. For the past fifteen years he has had a variety of consultancy jobs in Turkey, China, Iran, Morocco, Columbia, Poland and the UK. In September last year he started as Academic Mentor for the degree apprenticeship course at CSM. He is also a trustee of Ecton Mines Educational Trust that manages the historic copper mines of Ecton in the Peak District ( the subject of his talk) where students from primary to university come to learn about geology, chemistry and the history of where the minerals essential for modern life come from.
