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Tara Mine

The Municipal District of Navan, Italy

Tara Mine

Tara Mines is a zinc and lead mine near Navan, County Meath, Ireland. Tara is an underground mine where the orebody lies between 50–900 metres (160–2,950 ft) below the surface. The orebody is within the carbonate-hosted lead-zinc ore deposits of the Navan Deposit. The deposit was discovered in 1970

by Brian Byrne in conjunction with Derek Michael Romer while working for Pat Hughes' Northgate Exploration. Development started in 1973 and production began in 1977. Tara Mine is operated by Boliden, who acquired the mine in 2004. It is the largest zinc mine in Europe and the eighth largest in the world producing 200,000 tonnes (200,000 long tons; 220,000 short tons) of zinc concentrate and 40,000 tonnes (39,000 long tons; 44,000 short tons) of lead concentrate annually. Broken ore is delivered to one of five underground crushers and reduced in size to less than 150 millimetres (5.9 in) before being carried by conveyor to a 3,600-tonne (3,500-long-ton; 4,000-short-ton) capacity storage bin at the base of the production shaft. Skip loading and hoisting are automatic. Ore is supplied, at an hourly rate of 570 tonnes (560 long tons; 630 short tons), to the surface coarse ore storage building...

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