Abandoned Underground Mines of Ohio

Abandoned Underground Mines

The Mines of  Ohio Interactive Map (https://gis.ohiodnr.gov/MapViewer/?config=OhioMines), allows the public to view the location of both operational and abandoned, surface and underground mines in Ohio. 

As part of the Interactive Map, the users can also download different types of documents. One set of documents are the detailed abandoned underground mine maps. The original maps were scanned by the Ohio Geological Survey at either 1:1,200 or 1:2,400 scale. These maps were then reduced to 1:4,800 scale so they could be overlain on aerial photographs. These 1:4,800 scans also were also useful because the file size was small enough to to distribute through the Internet as PDF files.

We recently completed a project, that allows the download of documents associated with the Abandoned Underground Mine (AUM) point locations. The AUM point locations are mines that do not have a detailed or surveyed mine map. Many of these mines were very small family owned mines, that were not required to submit annual and final mine maps. The law from 1874 through 1977 stated that if a mine employed 10 or less miners, then the owner/operator did not need to submit an annual or final mine map. When a geologist from the Ohio Geological Survey was in the field, they frequently located and measured coal thicknesses at these small, family owned mines. The measured sections are now attached to the AUM point locations and can be downloaded.

I'd like to thank Joe Wells, GIS Database Adminisstrator, Mark Anstaett, GIS Software Developer, and Khanh Pham, Software Application Developer, for making this project happen.

Go ahead and explore!