I discovered an abandon coal mine

I was out hiking on Sunday in Jim Thorpe. Mount Pisgah is a favorite spot to sit on the rocks and veg out overlooking the Lehigh Gorge. The top of this mountain range between Jim Thorpe & Nesquehoning has been ripped apart due to strip mining long ago but at Mount Pisgah, there is a great overlook.

While hiking the Switchback Trail toward Pisgah leading out from Mauch Chunk Lake I took a detour on an unknown trail and it lead me to the mouth of an abandon mine. It was filled with clear water like a pond. Without gear, I wasn't even thinking about venturing in. Some old piles of coal & slate near by too. The opening was about 3.5' high and maybe 10' wide, solid rock.

I walked and biked the Switchback many times but I've never stumbled upon this mine. It was pretty cool, with a cold draft of air bleeding out.

Cool find! too bad not a gold mine. From now on, everytime you go for a hike, take home a backpack full. Free Fuel while helping to clean up the countryside.

I feel compeled to give the offical stay out stay alive speach at this point. Old mines are no joke. It requires specialized equipment and a trained eye to go in one. I hear too many stories out there from people that went into these with nothing but a flashlight. Best thing too do is if you feel the need to go in a coal mine is take one of the three excellent mine tours here in the region.

Mike, I wasn't going in, not unless you were guiding!
I was on the tour in Scranton last spring.

I figured you didn't go in, i'm sure you were tempted though with all that free coal and all But on a serious note they are dangerous. Some of them aren't even safe to be around on the outside. There are some mines that outcast so much blackdamp that even if your around the opening on the outside you could be affected by it.

blackdamp


form of mine gas ( in mine gas )
It is a product of the incomplete combustion of carbon and is formed in coal mines chiefly by the oxidation of coal, particularly in those mines where spontaneous combustion occurs. Black damp is an atmosphere in which a flame lamp will not burn, usually because of an excess of carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen in the air.

I've never heard of blackdamp....until now.

Where I grew up there were old mines all around town, (Bit mines) forget about the coal, there is enough copper in one mine that I know of to make two of us millionionares.
Ray

Buggy Wire... know what i mean
Ray

of course i have to add to mikes....... we have seen alot of nasty stuff underground in the past

http://www.undergroundminers.com/safety.html

and its no joke about blackdamp being expelled from a mine opening!

http://www.ugm2.com/MOV06820.MPG

Thanks Chris & Mike. I'll be extra careful next time I stumble into an abandon mine opening without my low o2 monitor. ( I use to have one I used on the job as tech in various plants ).

There are no coal mines in my part of the Lehigh Valley, but there are plenty of iron ore mines and pits. There is one opening nearby where one could go into a mine from the 1860's, but I don't have the nerve to crawl through a little hole with water on the floor.

I live in an abandoned coal mining town. This whole valley was filled with little mining camps. There are boarded up entrances and subsidances all over the place. Never heard of black damp, but we have problems with methane. As a matter of fact, my well water has methane in it. I can fill a gallon container of water, put a lighter over it, and I borrowed a methanometer to check the high dead spaces in my house to see if it was accumulating, but didn't get any to register at all. I wouldn't consider hanging out by a mine opening. There were some crazed coal bed methane drillers that thought they could get some easy money by drilling into some of the old shafts and collecting the methane. For some reason, they couldn't get any of the landowners to agree to it.

I lived my entire life in the heart of the anthracite region (Tamaqua) and as a young boy in the 50's I remember what appeared to be mine entrances carved into the rock face on the south side of route 209 as you entered into Jim Thorpe from Nesquehoning (Mount Pisgah). I was always told that they were uranium mines. I showed this post to a co-worker who is a Summit Hill native and he confirmed my memory. A quick search on the Internet reviled the following:

The uranium mineral autunite was reported in 1874 near the town of Mauch Chunk (present-day Jim Thorpe) in Carbon County, eastern Pennsylvania.[23] A small amount of test mining was done in 1953 at the Mount Pisgah deposit. The uranium at the Mount Pisgah deposit is primarily in an unidentified black mineral in pods and rolls in the basal conglomerate of the Mauch Chunk Formation (Mississippian). Also present are the secondary uranium and uranium-vanadium minerals carnotite, tyuyamunite, liebigite, uranophane, and betauranophane.[24]

I hope this sheds some light on the subject.

(Tamaqua) and as a young boy in the 50's I remember what appeared to be mine entrances carved into the rock face on the south side of route 209 as you entered into Jim Thorpe from Nesquehoning (Mount Pisgah). I was always told that they were uranium mines.

The mine I found was on the opposite side of Pisgah ( Mauch Chunk Lake side ) but likely connected to the uranium mining information you located in Wikapedia.