some general questions

[hispo33]

I'm reviewing your photos and movie clips and looks like there is plenty of great mines in your area.
Could you tell me how old are they in general and what was extracted in this region? (metals? coal?...)

[Stuart]

Welcome to Mojave Underground!

There are many (10,000+) great mines out here in the American West that I would consider worth exploring.

The large majority of these mines were worked between 1860-1930 with a few that starter earlier than that and also a few that are still being worked to this day.

The minerals mined out of this region (The West) vary widely, but the major commodities mined were: Gold, Silver, Lead, Copper, Zinc, Iron, Manganese, Coal, Vanadium, Uranium, and many more.

I'm curious about Poland, how old are your mines and what was primarily mined out of them? From your pictures and video they all look to be quite wet!

[hispo33]

The minerals mined out of this region (The West) vary widely, but the major commodities mined were: Gold, Silver, Lead, Copper, Zinc, Iron, Manganese, Coal, Vanadium, Uranium, and many more.

I'm not surprised seeing Gold/silver/lead/copper etc on the list.
What about coal - are you also exploring coal mines? - in our region coal mines are very deep 1600feet+. They are also very dangerous - you simply cannot expect air to breath at this depth without forced ventilation - that's why in general nobody explores coal mines.
Uranium in Poland or Czech republic were mined after II world war when cold war starts - having uranium mines in your area does it mean they initiate mining uranium earlier?

I'm curious about Poland, how old are your mines and what was primarily mined out of them? From your pictures and video they all look to be quite wet!

Some of the mines we are exploring are very old - by saying that I mean 15th - 17th century like here:



Others are modern mines closed like 20-30 years ago:


Most of mines are wet indeed. Water was always one of the biggest issues in mining in my area esspecially before electiricy age Water was removing from underground by horse power and then by steam engines but those methods were not very efficient. That's why miners desides in many cases to drill drainage adits. Nowadays you can still find some of them and explore. In general lower levels of many mines are totally flooded while you can still explore higher levels. In some cases we are using inflatable boats in case of deeper water as well.

Drainage adit from 19th century:

[KDT1970]

Those are some pretty sweet pictures.

[Kiel]

Most of utah uranium mines came in the 1930's-50's during the manhattan project is when they hit their stride. i don't think many explore the coal mine in utah though we do have them here for your safety reasons stated above, though some do have air meters on the forum here

[Dino]

Having worked in a coal mine here in Utah, I can say that they are not only dangerous after having been abandoned but are also not very interesting since there isn't many cool looking minerals like you would find in a metal mine. However there are dinosaur tracks in some, if thats something you're interested in. As for Uranium mines, the ones here in Utah are in soft sedimentary rocks in the Moab area and are also likely very unstable and dangerous. Before venturing into any of the abandoned Uranium mines I would highly recommend a geiger counter of some sort since the radon levels can be extremely high.