Mine exploration

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The Cathedral
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The Cathedral

Contents

[edit] Background

Mine exploration is a sport where people visit abandoned mines (and sometimes working mines) to explore, document, and to take photographs. Like Urban Exploration the ethos is to 'leave only footprints, take only pictures'. Mine explorers use a similar type of equipment as cavers e.g. helmet, head lamp, Wellington boots and sometimes an over-suit or boiler suit.

SRT in a mine
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SRT in a mine

Mine exploring usually involves less crawling and more walking than caving. Like caving, access to mines may require Single Rope Technique, for example if a vertical shaft is the only entrance. SRT may also be used inside the mine, for example if the original links between different levels are inaccessible. Similarly, some traverses and slopes may be roped for safety, particularly if organised groups are to be taken into the mine.

Mine explorers visit abandoned mines and old workings sometimes trespassing but never to cause damage, they are more interested in the industrial archaeology.

[edit] What's left?

Of all the countless mines that once were, comparatively few remain available for exploration. The primary reasons for not being able to explore any given mine are:

Bridge over a chamber
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Bridge over a chamber
  • Flooding: Almost all mines required pumps in their day to keep water out, with the exception of those having the luxury of being self-draining via deep drainage adits. With the pumps turned off, the mines slowly filled with water. Almost all disused mines in the UK are partially flooded, up to the level of the lowest adit, leaving the workings above this level free of water.
  • Redevelopment: The sites of old mines are frequently taken over by the Forestry Commission, National Trust or private land developers and unfortunately the general practice seems to be to bulldoze all the adits and cap all the shafts, effectively sealing the mine off. Many mines and their historical significance have been lost forever due to this.
  • Collapse: As workings age, the roofs of passageways and chambers can fail. In doing so, the collapsed area itself is of course no longer accessible, but it will also cut off any workings beyond that point where there remains no other way around. There are many mines that have suffered a small collapse right at the entrance (often the most vulnerable part) sealing off large mining complexes beyond.
  • Disallowed Access: Legal access to explore mines is not always possible, even though it may be physically possible to get in. All mines, no matter how old, are owned by somebody, and their attitude towards people exploring their private property varies.
  • Technical Limitations: Some mines are easy 'walkabouts', while others require immense effort, skill and equipment to explore. The party you're with may simply not have the kit or skills to explore mines above a certain level of difficultly.

Despite all this, there still remain quite a number of mines all over the UK that can be easily explored.

[edit] Why do it?

Mine Exploration by Boat
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Mine Exploration by Boat

"Because It's There", goes the old mountaineering saying - and it applies to mine-exploring too. Like many sports or hobbies, mine-exploring appeals to a certain group of people, while everyone else wonders what they see in it. So long as there are mines to explore, there are those who will commit time and effort to explore them.

It is highly rewarding to walk into an old mine and spend the day wandering along its tunnels; looking up into vast chambers; sometimes even boating across its lakes; and sitting in its underground buildings. Occasionally, old cranes are encountered, or the odd mine wagon sitting parked on the track. Some mines still have locomotives inside or waterwheels, pumps, and drilling equipment. Sometimes an impressive timber bridge will be found, spanning some unfathomable depth. Occasionally, you may cross paths with another exploring party, and exchange route information over a flask of tea. But mine-exploring is not for everyone.

[edit] Locations

[edit] UK

The extent of Britain's man-made underground world may come as a surprise to the layman. The total length of all the disused mine tunnels sprawling under the ground has never been measured but would easily fall into the thousands of miles (sometimes over 100 miles of track in one mine alone). These workings range from just below the surface to a great depth (1.1 km below the ground are the deepest in the UK), sometimes even leaving the mainland and going several miles out under the sea. The tunnels run through our mountains and under our cities; they connect the cavernous stopes and cathedral sized chambers from which the minerals were extracted.

[edit] Examples

Some typical mine exploration locations and type of mines are:

[edit] Links

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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