OLLI Course
Some Notes on the Scotia Mine

Graysdale Mine and pit near Scotia (0.6 mi on Scotia Range Road from the Scotia Road/Scotia Range Road intersection)

     History:  There are many local pockets of iron ore, the ore being chiefly limonite, FeO[OH], that were worked beginning before the Civil War.  The principal development was in the 1870's and 1880's.  The largest group was the Scotia Mines, opened in 1881 by Carnegie Bros. & Co, who also built a railroad to haul the ore.  Andrew Carnegie named them Scotia after his native Scotland. 
     A Bellefonte company bought the property in 1899 and worked it to 1912.  Mining ended when the much-superior ores of the Lake Superior region were developed.  In all, 1.7 million tons of ore were taken out of Scotia, at a grade of about 10-15% Fe, and with a maximum workings depth of 75 feet.
     One of the mines, Graysdale, was contemplated for reactivation in 1942 as part of the WWII strategic ore exploration program.  The CDT ran a story:

On the home front

   March 30, 1944

   Operation of the abandoned Scotia iron ore mines by the Scotia Mining Co. will be a permanent one and not one lasting merely for the duration of the war.

   This was indicated today by a statement made by a high official of the company, which on Tuesday was granted a contract for $500,000 to re-open the mines by the Defense Plant Co., a subsidiary of the Reconstruction Finance Co.

   The plans provide for the erection of modern mining buildings such as repair and machine shops, garage, office buildings, wash and comfort facilities for the employees, a three-mile railroad spur and a power line, the official said.  Also incorporated in the company's methods will be a heavy media process, the latest development in ore dressing.

   The entire operation is sponsored by the War Production Board for the Defense Plant Corp.

 
Unfortunately, no ore was mined or shipped.  The processing plant was sold for $450 and dismantled in 1948.  Some remains can be found in the woods a few hundred feet north (away from State College) of the road.  An exploration pile from the 1944-1948 venture remains on the hill to the east of the lake.  The hill, like many in the immediate area, is a mine dump, now forested over.  The lake, which can be accessed by a trail north of the road, sits in the lowest point of the open-pit mine.  The land surface before mining was roughly 100 ft above lake level.

     Geology: The Graysdale mine and similar deposits represent lows or sinkholes in an old (Miocene? Eocene?) paleokarst topography.  The process is essentially that discussed with the CALL class at the Kmart/Lowe's site -- a thick soil developed in a hot, humid climate.  That paleokarst topography has since been filled in by more recent weathering and alluvial materials.  When mine workings were visible, ore was seen to occur either as vertical pillars, presumably representing cave fillings, or as replacement deposits in limestone.  Elsewhere in Pennsylvania similar deposits contain Eocene lignite, giving a time constraint.  In the Scotia region the karst lows typically occur in the Lower Sandy and Upper Sandy members of the Gatesburg Formation, which are dolostone units with interbedded feldspathic sandstones, near their contact with the Ore Hills member, a dolostone.  The Lower Sandy and Upper Sandy have higher permeability than the Ore Hill, consistent with deeper karst development.  There is debate why iron ore has been concentrated within and beneath these karst lows.
     Breccias can be observed at Scotia, representative of the karst collapse topography.  Seams of kaolinite clay attest to the tropical weathering environment, and of course there are lots and lots of limonite nodules.