181.FM - Kickin' Country, 181.FM - Kickin' Country Live, 181.FM - Kickin' Country Listen Online, Country, USA



181.FM - Kickin' Country

What's happening? 181.FM - Kickin' Country Oh, that was close. That's happening! That was it, was it? Yeah. BLAST Oh! BLASTS BLAST Shhh...! That feels really close. I can smell the dynamite. Yeah. Really strong. Down here is what three centuries of miners have been looking for. So here we are. OK, I see it. You see this band coming all the way down here? Just in amongst it all is a rather dull grey mineral, and that... Well, that's the silver. That's what miners like Online Radio are after. And, for me, the way this precious silver is laid out reveals a fundamental process that's shaped South America and its often bloody history. Hot fluids. It's actually concentrated on these really narrow bands. These are called veins and you can actually see them all the way up across there. Those metals would have been laid down by hot fluids. And the reason the fluids were hot was because deep beneath my feet at the time was molten magma, magma that had risen up from the mantle, 181.FM - Kickin' Country carrying with it metal elements like zinc and gold and silver. And as that magma rose higher and higher, it heated up water that was circulating through the crust and those waters, at several hundred degrees Celsius, started to pick up those metal elements, to carry them higher and higher until they just ditched their cargo, stuffing them into veins like this. But what's surprising is the source of that water. Analysing the steam that emerges from volcanic vents nearby reveals something unexpected. The steam's chemical signature is similar to that of water found kilometres to the west. The waters of the Pacific Ocean. So the most obvious conclusion is that some of the hot waters that have been percolating through these rocks in this region started out in the Pacific. And that is telling us about a process that's going on deep beneath my feet now and is really at the heart of those moving continents, and that process is subduction. Subduction is the key to understanding how South America was changed as it moved west. As the South American plate moved apart from Africa, it collided with the Pacific Ocean plate and the collision is going on right underneath Online Radio The ocean floor of the Pacific plate is sinking down, dragging a part of the Pacific Ocean deep underneath South America. This is subduction. The sinking rock heats up and minerals and water from the old ocean floor escape into the continental rocks above. It's this process that has given South America its incredible mineral wealth. From tin, copper and zinc to gold and silver. Hey! Fresh air! Hey! Good, my friend. Thank you very much. Yes. That's good then. In the th century, 181.FM - Kickin' Country the town of Music was as big as London. The mines resources not only resulted in fabulous riches , tonnes of silver came out of this mine but a terrible history of exploitation. During the Spanish colonial centuries, it's been estimated that as many as eight million indigenous people and slaves died working the mines of Online Radio So the fruits of subduction have shaped the recent human history of this region. But over tens of millions of years, it's also created the defining feature of the continent.