Jet Mining

[tygwyn]

I know Jet was mined up near Whitby,but where these seams were mined,were there any coal seams above and below the Jet seams?

A posting on a forum i advertise meat from the farm[Hint,Hint]a Yorkshire lad is doing some carving and polishing of Jet found on the beach to make jewelry etc ,one of the links he posted had different photos of Jet,one was like the Clod we had on the Stwrin Anthracite seam,the coal was 3-3ft 6in and the clod 9-12ins,but this Clod was nothing like any i`ve handled before,it sounded like broken chine when you ripped down,and was coloured from Black to Grey to Blue to White,and the colours fused together,it also had an oily smell to it,i seen something similar from smelting somewhere down the Swansea Valley,but cannot remember where.

Any thoughts on it,not saying it was Jet but looked similar to the photos shown in the link,if it had been Jet,it would have been worth 10 times the coal,but was just gobbed.

[John]

Feb 11, 2014 16:53:22 GMT -5 tygwyn said:

I know Jet was mined up near Whitby,but where these seams were mined,were there any coal seams above and below the Jet seams?

A posting on a forum i advertise meat from the farm[Hint,Hint]a Yorkshire lad is doing some carving and polishing of Jet found on the beach to make jewelry etc ,one of the links he posted had different photos of Jet,one was like the Clod we had on the Stwrin Anthracite seam,the coal was 3-3ft 6in and the clod 9-12ins,but this Clod was nothing like any i`ve handled before,it sounded like broken chine when you ripped down,and was coloured from Black to Grey to Blue to White,and the colours fused together,it also had an oily smell to it,i seen something similar from smelting somewhere down the Swansea Valley,but cannot remember where.

Any thoughts on it,not saying it was Jet but looked similar to the photos shown in the link,if it had been Jet,it would have been worth 10 times the coal,but was just gobbed.

I think the jet was picked out of the cliffs Jim, I don't think it was mined in the sense we think of as mining...Amber is also "mined" around that area as was Alum.
There are lots of old Alum workings around Staithes...Alum was used for "fixing" dye colours in the dying process. Pre that they used to buy the pee pot contents and boil it for the same reason, to make dye "colour fast".

[tygwyn]

I was mined john in the sense of small levels,more my typical workplace than yours,lol
I will put a link up later.

www.whitbyjet.co.uk/about-jet/mining.html

[John]

Feb 11, 2014 17:27:22 GMT -5 tygwyn said:

I was mined john in the sense of small levels,more my typical workplace than yours,lol
I will put a link up later.

www.whitbyjet.co.uk/about-jet/mining.html

Ahhh, bit like the gold mines I had on the property we used to own in Australia....Sorry, long worked out...LOL

[Minutor]

Jet was also mined in the Guisborough hills and in some places the small room and pillar workings are very close to the surface, local collapses allow access into some of the workings. I explored some in the 1980's with the late John Owen a Cleveland mining historian. The workings we visited were cramped, not much more than a metre wide and were hand cut using picks. There are some pictures here of jet workings in the Hutton area of Guisborough

www.hidden-teesside.co.uk/2008/06/

As for the geology the Jet is Jurrasic in age and occurs in a specific zone below the Alum Shale; it is not associated with coal. The clod you found is probably an organic rich metamorphosed shale, no good for jewellry!