ABSTRACT
Newly discovered mineral sites, perhaps more than anywhere else, encapsulate a frontier mystique. At the outset, the geological and social unknowns combine with a sense of enormous economic potential. People flock to the location in large numbers with high expectations of gain. There they must contend with the fact that others from far and wide have descended on the location with the same hopes and expectations. The local economy, culture and society that emerge are an aberration from the surrounding countryside and culture rooted in a strong sense of the locational past. Mining settlements pivot around the production and consumption patterns of miners living in the immediate present, who seek to gain their livelihood and make their fortune then and there.
