Daily Herald | Posted: Monday, April 2, 2007 11:00 pm
State and federal agencies recently identified more than 400 abandoned coal mines in Utah and now they're looking for mine maps that people might have stashed away.
"We are asking the public to dig out all of their old prospecting maps that they got from their parents or grandparents to see if they contain information about old mines that we don't have," said Dave Tabet, a senior scientist with the Utah Geological Survey.
"This is really a public safety issue. We hope ... we can avoid the kind of accidents that have occurred in the eastern U.S. where active mines have become flooded when they intersect abandoned mines and miners are trapped."
UGS has been able to find maps for about 58 percent of the abandoned mines and would like to have a map for each mine. The agency will make a digital copy of any needed maps people find and then return the maps.
The abandoned mine locations are in an online database that's part of a UGS effort to put more services and information on the Internet. Other items at the Web site -- geology.utah.gov -- include well logs, answers to common questions on Utah minerals and geology, interactive maps about GeoSights and Utah energy statistics.
The coal mine database is at geology.utah.gov/databases/umsh/index.html.
UGS worked with the Division of Oil, Gas and Mining and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to create the database. The Mine Safety and Health Administration provided $52,000 to fund the project.
The UGS can be reached at (801) 537-3300.
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D3.