Stay OUT of Old Mines

[Odanscoils]

In College I majored for several years in Geology. This was in the early 1970's in an active mining district.
Fellow students and I did explore a 1860 hard rock basalt mine shaft in the copper country.
Very interesting. Veins of Pure copper and crystals were still embedded in the mine walls.
The old leather harnesses and the narrow gauge track they uses on the mules were there too.
Probably the biggest danger was falling down a vertical air shaft and they had wooden fences to mark them off.
There was a bit of craftsmanship on the part of the old timers in how they used wood and stone to build walls.
The main entrance shaft was on a 30 degree incline and you could go down until you hit the ground water level.
Eventually all these old mine entrances were filled and sealed.
Some mines shafts were first stuffed with old 1950 auto wrecks to plug the opening then filled with dirt.
About 10 years ago I guess the autos rusted away enough and a shaft opened up and had to be fenced off and then resealed. This was in the city limits.
Back in the 1970's when some of the mines were still active you were waken in the middle of the night by dynamite blasting that shook the whole house.
In the summer there are 3 or four electrically lit mines open to tourism in that area if one is interested.
One mine actually supervises and allows repelling down the air shafts to the lower levels for exploration. in the dark.

What area is this with the tours.
Rappelling would be fun.

 

[Coin Rescue Inc]

Underground Mine Tours - Adventure Mining Company

Experience the mine as the miners would have over 160 years ago with a single light on your hard hat. Our mine is located near Greenland, Michigan in the Upper Peninsula.

adventureminetours.com

 

[Coin Rescue Inc]

My brotherinlaw worked in a Detroit Salt Mine years ago. Once a year they had a family day and relatives could tour the mine. We did the tour and it was incredible. The only way in and out is a horizontal shaft that had a personal lift that could take no more then 8 at a time. All the pick up trucks, front end loaders were purchased in pieces and went down that lift and were reassembled in the mine.

 

[Odanscoils]

My brotherinlaw worked in a Detroit Salt Mine years ago. Once a year they had a family day and relatives could tour the mine. We did the tour and it was incredible. The only way in and out is a horizontal shaft that had a personal lift that could take no more then 8 at a time. All the pick up trucks, front end loaders were purchased in pieces and went down that lift and were reassembled in the mine.

I'm near the Morton salt mine in Mentor Ohio.
I've always wanted to go down there.
No tours anymore.

 

[Coin Rescue Inc]

We left with huge chunks of clear crystalline salt that you could see through.
Imbedded in the salt was ancient Seaweed and air bubbles with seawater trapped inside from 400 million years ago.
It was mind Boggling to have that. The Exposure of the specimens to our environment and humidity levels eventually deteriorated the salt into piles of small salt chunks

 

[Odanscoils]

We left with huge chunks of clear crystalline salt that you could see through.
Imbedded in the salt was ancient Seaweed and air bubbles with seawater trapped inside from 400 million years ago.
It was mind Boggling to have that. The Exposure of the specimens to our environment and humidity levels eventually deteriorated the salt into piles of small salt chunks

Sad
If you could of put it under glass under vacuum.
It would probably still be beautiful.
Humidity is nasty on salt.

 

[CoinShooter01]

The entire city I live in has underground coal mines everywhere. I live right next to a entrance that was sealed off in the early 1970's. Its now an empty lot, that butts right up to my property. Exploring is very tempting. I saw a old map of the tunnels, and I was amazed at how many tunnels are here. Some of them are 20 miles long. The entire city is basica;lly built on top of a network of tunnels. There has really only been one area of town, where mine subsidence was an issue, and its basically a nice, newer, expensive subdivision on the other side of town. Ive often thought about bypassing the closed off entrance, and go exploring, but it would be so dangerous. I imagine some or all of the tunnels are filled with water, and a lack of oxygen, but who knows. Cant help but think that it would make an excellent underground bunker, in a SHF situation. Entertaining to think about, but just too risky.

 

[Johnho]

For some reason I never read though this thread so I'm going to comment anyway even if 2 years old. I went to Colorado School of Mines in the mid 60's and became a mining engineer. While in school we had to compete with guys from CU, DU for the girls. We mostly went to Denver to the 3.2 clubs. We only had one girl at Mines at that time. Girls liked Mines guys for some reason. Well, many times we would take our date up to the old mines around Idaho Springs and Central City. We told them to dress with jeans, boots and a jacket. We did tell them where we were going and they loved it. We had carbide lamps and hard hats for all of us. We entered many of the old mines and we knew if the carbide light went out to get out. We had a ball. Now remember, we were kids and invincible. Stupid? Yup. But I don't think I'll ever forget those dates and don't regret it for one minute. Of course afterwards we went for 3.2 beer. Now that I'm old and can barely walk anymore would I do it again, sure.

 

[sube]

I will take up batwinging before going in another mine . sube

 

[Waterdog]

One of my friends went into a tunnel in the dessert area. He died after the tunnel collapsed on him.