Parys Mountain - Anglesey

Excavations at the copper mines at Parys Mountain near Amlwch on the Isle of Anglesey show that mining there dates back almost 4000 years to the early Bronze Age. However it was not until the mid 18th Century that major ore deposits of the modern industrial era were discovered. The opencast mine in this picture was originally formed by the collapse of underground workings, but has been considerably enlarged by the picks and shovels of the miners. Several levels of underground workings are known to exist to this day, so the toil and hard work of the miners (men, women and children) is hard to imagine. The colours in the rocks are formed from the various minerals, predominantly Copper, Lead, Zinc and Iron.