| Abstrakt: |
The rural 19th century iron industry in northwestern Pennsylvania chiefly used locally mined carbonate or buhrstone ore (FeCO3) to produce pig iron. Buhrstone ore, and underlying Vanport limestone for flux, were primarily extracted from exposed outcrops or "ore banks" on slope landforms, using open pit and trench mining. I used LiDAR imagery to locate putative ore mining sites in the lower Deer Creek Valley (DCV) of Clarion County, a landscape that supported five charcoal-fueled iron furnaces in blast between 1832 - 1859. Six ore mining sites were identified in the lower DCV study area, of which two were previously known. Pits and trenches in small groups on plateaus, or in linear to curvilinear configurations on slope landforms, were the signature mining features visible in LiDAR imagery. However, not all ore mining sites were detectable with LiDAR, nor was the extent of mining at a particular site readily apparent from imagery alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
