Extinct mining settlement Bludná was an important centre of tin and iron ore mining in the 16th–19th centuries. It lies in the area of the huge fault zone with a NW–SE direction. The structure was a key factor in the formation of quartz veins containing hematite and of cassiterite-bearing veins as well.
This important zone can be traced back through Mariánská and Hřebečná to Potůčky where it continues to Saxony. It has a total length of 32 km (including 18 km on the Czech side) and is called Bludná Fault (in Saxony: Rothgrübner and Neujahr, in the Jáchymov ore district: Central Fault). Hematite occasionally forms up to 18 meter thick accumulations. As a rich iron ore, it was mainly mined in the section east of Blatenský Hill, where the mine Gottes Hilfe was founded in 1562. The major iron ore mining period lasted from the middle 18th century to the first third of the 19th century. The last attempts to reopen the mines are dated back to 1917. An important source of energy to drive the mining and metallurgical machinery was water from the Blatenský ditch.
The remains of iron the ore mining at Bludná overlap with signs of tin mining. The tin mines were closed around the turn of the 18th and 19th century, but had a much greater extension. Especially rich were the mines in Sněžná hůrka.
Fig.:
1. Stop situation in the map
2. The last two houses in Bludná
3. View from Bludná to the Blatenský Hill; in the foreground flooded pit at places of the Alter Göpel Shaft