Mines tend to follow exposures (veins for example). They harvest the material and follow the path into the mountain if it’s profitable enough. Eventually it becomes too costly to operate all the equipment nessessary so the mine becomes commercially tapped out as it can no longer run its daily operations at a profit.
There’s a lot of nuance though. Just because a mine isn’t commercially viable doesn’t mean an individual can’t walk away with rare specimens or a big pay day. Not all things make sense to commercially mine as well. Very few companies operate Quartz mines for example as it is an extremely common crystal. Avant mining however is one of the few. They have owned and operated some of the most famous quartz mines and still currently harvest some world class pieces out of Arkansas.
Who knows when those mines with truely run out, but its pretty much certain that even when they do there would still be more that they left behind.
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