Mine Diving - An Exploration Question.

[Aquabot]

I figure this is as good a place as any if not the best place to ask with regards to flooded mines.

For background, I currently live in Nevada and while doing some offroad site seeing I found and mine which is flooded. I've been full cave for some years now and even participated in some exploration of natural cave systems, but nothing man-made such as a mine. I was able to look up the gps coordinates I have and found it apparently was a copper mine, but I don't know what I don't know. The first two concerns that come to mind would be system stability and water toxicity.

So, how would one go about determining if it is safe to dive/explore?

[jebernot]

For water you take a sample to a lab...yes there is a fee. This had to be done for a training site I used to use on a military installation. Who owns the land though?? Stability is not going to be known and should be a concern. I would suggest doing some research. Any mine owned or operated by any real entity over the last 100 plus years has blueprints somewhere, kind of like ship deck plans. It's a matter of figuring out where they are.

[Aquabot]

For water you take a sample to a lab...yes there is a fee. This had to be done for a training site I used to use on a military installation. Who owns the land though?? Stability is not going to be known and should be a concern. I would suggest doing some research. Any mine owned or operated by any real entity over the last 100 plus years has blueprints somewhere, kind of like ship deck plans. It's a matter of figuring out where they are.

Thanks for replying, I'm still slowly researching to find whatever information I can on it. As for the owner, at the moment it appears to be owned by the BLM. I may never get to dive it before moving back east, but it's still fun to think "What if".

[Lostsheep]

If you haven’t found this yet it might have useful info :

https://thediggings.com/

[Aquabot]

If you haven?t found this yet it might have useful info :

https://thediggings.com/

Thanks, I have not seen this yet!