2025/12/31 by Víctor Barrientos, Roberto Matías Rodríguez, Eduardo González Clavijo · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · #Archaeological and Geological Studies #Geological and Geophysical Studies Worldwide #Urbanism, Landscape, and Tourism Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.17979/cadlaxe.2025.47.12805
openalex publication_date 2025/12/31 · openalex created_date 2026/01/08 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The Roman mine of As Borreas de Caldesiños (Viana do Bolo, Ourense) is a Roman gold exploitation from the 1st and 2nd centuries. The erosion of the surrounding Variscan materials (slates, schists, quartzites and two-mica granites) provided the gold-bearing sediments deposited during the Miocene. Mining activity using hydraulic means allowed the extraction of gold and generated a very striking landscape similar to that of the Médulas de Carucedo (León). In this study, the boundary between Paleozoic materials and Tertiary sediments is defined, and, on the other hand, an attempt is made to identify the origin of the sedimentary materials by measuring the orientation of imbricated clasts, with the trouble that these sediments are tilted towards the east by alpine tectonics. These measurements indicate that the sediments were deposited by water currents coming from the south-southwest. Likewise, the existing anthropic deposits in the lower part of the exploitation are mapped and granulometrically described, which are the materials expelled through the mine washing channels and, accordingly, they are not tectonized and are deposited over fluvial terraces of the river Camba.