The Idrija mercury mine had a major impact on people’s lives in Idrija for the last 500 years, ever since the discovery of mercury around 1490 until the present. These 500 years of activity of the mercury mine in Idrija also affected the Idrija landscape. In my master's degree, I focused primarily on the influence of the Idrija mine on the landscape, which was affected by forestry, the initial smeltery processes and the beginnings of mining in Idrija. In addition to everything I mentioned above, I also devoted some attention to the subsequent attempt of mercury mining in the gorge named Rošpova grapa. The experimental tunnel in the mentioned gorge gives us a rare insight into the imprint that the tunnel of mercury mine had on the landscape. After abandoning the tunnel unlike other tunnels, its surrounding, was untouched by humans. With airborne laser scanning recordings, I searched for traces that were formed in the landscape during the aforementioned activities of the Idrija mine, especially in the vicinity of the town of Idrija. Through research we realize that the influence of the mine on Idrija is big, but with the specific traces that arise in the landscape, we soon come across a problem that is hard to connect them to specific mine practices. In most cases subsequent uses of the area erased the traces of earlier practices, but some traces were nevertheless preserved. In addition to the influence on the landscape, I also partially examined the spatial arrangement of the wider surroundings of the town.
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