This is a photo of the wreck of a reclamation dredge. The dredge was used during the middle of the 20th Century by the Quincy Mining Company on the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan. For decades, copper-bearing rock was brought to the surface, crushed, some of the copper separated, and the waste material, "stamp sand," discarded in Torch Lake and Portage Lake. Improvements in the techniques to recover copper led to the "reclamation" or reprocessing of the discarded stamp sands. This is one of two dredges used on Torch Lake. The stamp sand was sucked up in the big, moveable pipe on the left of the dredge, and sent by pipeline to the Reclamation Plant on shore, the ruins of which are seen in the background. The story of copper mining in the area is now told by the Keweenaw National Historical Park (www.nps.gov/kewe). Torch Lake has a lake level connection to Portage Lake, and in turn Lake Superior. Lake-going freighters were able to dock on the shores of Torch Lake. Lake Superior water levels are down due to protracted drought in the basin. Snowfall, a major source precip in the local Lake/Land cycle, has been below normal the last few winters. CoCoRAHS observer MI-HG-1.
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