Has anyone gone inside a coal mine?
December 18, 2009 by
Filed under coal mine
Or any other mine.
Can you please share your experience..
I’ve heard you can see water falls when you go down into a coal mine. Is that true?
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Yes I did, Almost got arrested too. It was up in northern PA, where the freaking underground mines are still on fire. Towns have been bought out to keep people of the lands ” off of route 81 ”
I didn;t get to far, I was kinda freaked out, very musty smelling, loose rocks everywhere made it hard to walk, the tunnel was a slight slope downward, so it wasn’t like a steep slope.
I saw the old tracks they used to push the carts with.
It seemed to be closed in, it just seemed way so small of a tunnel. Either they are all that tight going or this one was not that well done yet.
I heard water, but i thinki t was water from the soaked land above me trickling through the rocks above.
I’ve been in many mines (I’d guess somewhere around 30 or 40 underground mines, plus several open pits), but only one coal mine. I didn’t like the coal mine I was at because they were pursuing narrow seams and so the galleries (the rooms) had really low ceilings. We didn’t go very far in because they mining was being done with these machines they had to lie down on to operate.
Every mine is different, but pretty well all of them have water problems (a lot of groundwater enters the mine and has to be channelled away and eventually pumped to surface). I have never seen a waterfall, although there are vertical shafts that have a lot of water flowing down them in some mines, or in some parts of some mines.
Some mines have very broad galleries, big enough to drive large trucks through, but most that I have been in, the galleries are about 10 feet high and maybe 25 feet wide or less. The smallest active mine I was ever in had galleries that I had to duck most of the way to keep from hitting my head (I am tall) and in many places I could touch the walls on both sides by stretching out my arms. They were chasing veins in that mine, so the galleries weren’t very straight and diverted off in odd directions occasionally.
Most mines are cool and damp. They blow a lot (a lot) of air through the mines to keep air quality acceptable.
The hottest mine I was ever in was in Idaho. We went down over a kilometer as I recall, and they took us to a new area that wasn’t well ventilated yet, and walking from the main gallery into the new section was like hitting a wall of hot humid air, sort of like going outside from an airconditioned building in mid summer in florida.
It is an interesting experience being in a mine. The only light is from your headlamp and it can seem a bit claustrophobic for those that like their open spaces. But you can get some really good fresh exposure of the rocks and see the various geological relationships that otherwise would be impossible to see, so from my perspective as a geologist, every trip was fascinating.
not in a coal mine but salt mine in kheora, Pakistan, which is largest in Asia. if get the chance to visit Pakistan, don’t forget to visit it, it is really a wonder hidden inside with all beauty of nature
No coal mines, but have been inside caves where there were lakes 1,000 feet below the ground. No waterfalls, but you could see the drips of water, and the stalactites and stalagmites everywhere.
Also been inside of lava tubes, those are kind of weird, and if you realize that it was all caused by lava flowing through it, it’s bizarre.
Its true some coal mines do have water falls in them as well as streams, many lower levels of coal mines become completely filled with water, at least the one I was in was, if they are not equiped with an efficient way for the water to leave. They are also very dark and depending on the shape of the tunnel you are in it can give you the illusion that you are leaning to one side or another