Dominican Amber Mining
By Alec Corday
Steven Spielberg didn't help the image. In his 1993 movie Jurassic Park he depicted a Dominican Amber Mine the way he felt it should look (using the above words).
The result was a very stylized Dominican Amber Mine, with a river alongside it, about a dozen miners in hardhats with picks and shovels and even the obligatory mining trolley.
The mine itself was large and secured by pillars and vertical and a grown man could stand in it. Even the pieces found are easily exposed and show off their interior beauty in the shine of powerful flashlights. (But to this critic the funniest discrepancy was the Mexican accents of the ''Dominican'' miners.)

In short, most people imagine amber mining to be alike shaft mining or an industrial open pit mining. This might even be true in the case of Russian amber.
But, Dominican Amber, and especially BLUE Dominican amber is mined through bell pitting, which is a different story alltogether. The difference is quickly told:
Shaft mining and open pit mining is what everyone understands under 'mining': trolleys, lamps, pillars, the works.

Bell pitting is basically a foxhole dug with whatever tools are available. Machetes do the start, some shovels and picks and hammers may participate eventually.

The pit itself goes as deep as possible or safe, sometimes vertical, sometimes horizontal, but never level. It snakes into hill sides, drops away, joins up with others, goes straight up and pops out elsewhere. 'Foxhole' applies indeed: rarely are the pits large enough to stand in, and then only at the entrance.

Miners crawl around on their knees using candles and short-handled picks, shovels and machetes. There are little to no safety measures in sight. A pillar or so may hold back the ceiling from time to time but only if the area has previously collapsed.

There is a shocking lack in any other safety measures we have come to know from mines. Candles are the only source of light. Humidity inside the mines is at 100%.

Since the holes are situated high on mountainsides (no rivers to speak of) and deep inside said mountains, the temperature is cool and bearable, but after several hours the air becomes stale.
During rain the mines are forced to close.
The holes fill up quickly with water, and there is little point in pumping it out again (although sometimes this is done) because the unsecured walls may crumble.

The dirt is hauled out of the pits using sacks, and the miners crawl to the surface out of their cave in Platonic fashion, squint into the sun as they dump the dirt and promptly return down into their reality.
The Blue Amber Channel we will take you into the mines and the amber process like only the Discovery Channel can...
in video, audio and full Technicolor. All short movies are available are in Windows Media Player format, meaning they are very fast to download and easy to play.Start having a short glimpse into what can happen in the life of a Blue Amber amber miner. Go to The Blue Amber Channel
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