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Kaim Mine [East I]

N of Lochwinnoch, Kaim, Renfrewshire.

Copper Mine (19th Century).

Copper mining in this area occurred from c.1848 until 1877. Vein unsuccessfully worked at this locality in 1874 at 30 fathoms [55 m].

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Excerpt from NERC report:

The mines are situated 3 km north of Lochwinnoch and are close to a metalled road. Montgomery (1839) and the New Statistical Account for Scotland (1845) record the presence of copper carbonate and baryte in surface outcrops associated with a dyke at Kaim but no attempt had been made to work the ore. In places the concentration of copper was so high as to inhibit growth of vegetation. It seems that mining started about 1848, continued intermittently until 1877 (Houston, 1912) and is reputed to have finally ended when the City of Glasgow Banking Company crashed in 1878...

... The copper occurs with baryte, quartz (often amethystine) and calcite in veins extending for 800 m on the southern margin of a 20 m-wide quartz-dolerite dyke trending E 10 degrees N through amygdaloidal mugearite. Shaft debris suggests that the mugearite is underlain by a Markle basalt. The dyke is altered and vesicular in the vicinity of the veins, and both dyke and country rock are permeated by the copper mineralisation. Several subparallel veins are recorded in places, dipping south at 60 to 70'. The largest vein (No. 2 Lode) was 2 to 3 m wide and was proved horizontally for up to 550 m. Records refer to 'grey sulphuret of copper' and chalcocite (Houston, 1912), but more recent examinations suggest that the main assemblage is malachite with bornite and chalcopyrite. Much malachite is present as green stains on joints, as disseminated irregular patches, as thin veinlets, and as fibrous crystals with quartz or calcite in vugs and amygdales.

The veins were worked by two separate companies, Lochwinnoch Consols Co. at East Kaim and from 1861 The West Kaim Copper Mining Co. (Ltd) at West Kaim. At East Kaim, the one main shaft had reached a depth of 58.5 m in 1874, from which levels were driven along the vein, the lowest being at 55 m. In addition, five adits and trial workings are recorded in the side of the Kaim Burn and the site of a smelter is still marked by a pile of glassy, black slag... Other trial adits occur in the base of a mugearite flow, 200 m downstream from East Kaim in the Kaim Burn."

Alternative Names: East Kaim Mine

Notes: Original coordinates suggest mine is E of Kaim Bridge. Amended coordinates are from Geological Survey Map using details from NERC report.