Monte Cristo Mine March 19 2014

This mine began in the 1890's, in the search for silver, lead and zinc. It never developed any significant levels of production and no records exist to give further detail to its history.
The lease is now worked by us for the fossils contained with in the bell shale though the occassional piece of sphalerite, galena and pyrite are found. The shale (lower devonian) contains trilobites, corals, brachiopods and other marine species.
It is slow and demanding manual work - firstly to remove any overburden, usually a button-grass/heath mix, extract rock in sizeable pieces and then further reduce the rock with crack-hammers, hoping to reveal some hidden fossil within.  Whilst no complete specimens of the trilobite (digonus zeehanensis) have yet been found, we plan to continue the search.