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Show HN: Mines.fyi – all the mines in the US in a leaflet visualization
I downloaded the MSHA's (Mine Safety and Health Administration) public datasets and create a visualization of all the mines in the US complete with the operators and details on each site.
- irasigman 7mo agoDownloaded from https://www.msha.gov/data-and-reports/mine-data-retrieval-system https://www.msha.gov/data-and-reports/mine-data-retrieval-sy.... Pipe-delimited, updated weekly by MSHA.
- alexchamberlain 7mo agoThere are 3 mines on Manhattan; is that correct?
- kenforthewin 7mo agoI'm glad it's those kinds of mines rather than the ones I first thought of.
- SaberTail 7mo agoThis doesn't seem to be complete. It's missing the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, for example, which should be southeast of Carlsbad, NM. It's a underground salt (metal/non-metal) mine, and MSHA definitely regulates it
- Exuma 7mo agoHow many of these pose asbestos hazards like the Libby mine?
- dboreham 7mo agoThe Libby mine isn't in the data set because it's no longer operational.
- defrost 7mo agoThe US, like many countries and regions, has poor coverage of abandoned, closed, and shuttered mine sites despite such sites still posing an ongoing danger in terms of imminent physical danger (collapse, decay, etc) and untreated waste piles and ponds leaching toxins into ground waters, etc. To answer the question posed, "how many (US?) mine sites pose a danger of type {X}" requires crawling the US BLM datasets, the OSHA datasets, the archived (from when active) MSHA datasets, and having a some luck onside for various specific sites due to large gaps and periods of not caring at all. See: * https://www.epa.gov/epcra/does-msha-have-jurisdiction-over-inactive-mine-facilities https://www.epa.gov/epcra/does-msha-have-jurisdiction-over-i... * https://www.blm.gov/programs/aml-environmental-cleanup/aml https://www.blm.gov/programs/aml-environmental-cleanup/aml Various transnational global mining companies (Rio Tinto, et al) have extensive datasets on global resources and minesites, both operational, and past and potential future sites.
- jeffbee 7mo agoThe map has a "Status" predicate.
- advisedwang 7mo agoThis seems to include cement works and other processing plants that have somewhat mine-like output but aren't actually extracting anything from the ground at that site.
- bombcar 7mo agoAnd it doesn't include all of those.
- nektro 7mo agoI love the idea of a site like this existing but the expanding dots is a really bad way to visualize this.
- HardwareLust 7mo agoI saw your title and my first thought was "Why are there landmines in the US?" lol.
- buildbot 7mo agoApparently there are in fact, 0. Publicly, at least.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- simonw 7mo agoTIL there's a mine within San Francisco city limits! https://mines.fyi/mine/0405261 https://mines.fyi/mine/0405261 (I guess technically a "surface mine" for "Construction Sand and Gravel".)
- maxbond 7mo agoOnce you learn how to spot these you'll see them everywhere on road trips and such.
- greggsy 7mo agoI see quarries everywhere, and they’re kind of required near any city or road project around Australia. Never considered them as a mine though… more like a ‘general resource site’?
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- dboreham 7mo agoThe data set includes gravel pits. You can filter them out by selecting "Underground" for "Type".
- defrost 7mo agoWouldn't that also filter out every open cut surface mine that strips overburden and directly extracts near surface coal, copper deposits, iron ore, etc. Not every mine is a "classic" underground mine with tunnels, etc. See (for example) the W.Australian SuperPit gold mine which consolidated every shaft mine in a particular region into a single open pit that goes deeper than any pre existing underground mine in that area.
- w10-1 7mo agoCan't see a thing. Dark on dark in Safari 26.3.
- koshergweilo 7mo agoI don't know why, but when I read the title I assumed the map was about landmines. No, these are the cool ones that take stuff out of the ground, not the ones that destroy everything above them
- buildbot 7mo agoI had exactly the same thought, and was quite intrigued. Very disappointed actually, it would be cool if there was open data about land mines.
- AlotOfReading 7mo agoThe US government has been pretty good about cleaning up the UXO it knows about, which means what's left is the UXO it doesn't know about. You'll find it near most of the current and former testing ranges, particularly Yuma Proving Ground where there's trails leading right from the adjacent BLM land into areas with potential UXO. The only real barriers are a few signs and the law.
- getwiththeprog 7mo agoCleaned up on their own territory. UXO are still a danger in other countries, such as Laos.
- guessmyname 7mo agoOh! I thought it was landmines too and was very confused + concerned when I saw dots near where I live.
- jedberg 7mo agoSame! And then I saw three near my house and thought "if they know where they are, why haven't they been removed???" Then I clicked on one and saw it was the name of our local rock quarry. :)
- andrew_mason1 7mo agohey now, landmines destroy stuff below them too
- tastyfreeze 7mo agoUSGS MRDATA has a lot more mines. Their data is also freely available for download. I use their datasets and base maps for my personal GIS projects. https://mrdata.usgs.gov/ https://mrdata.usgs.gov/
- bombcar 7mo agoIt includes what most would call quarries and it doesn't include anywhere near all of them (there are basically infinite invisible quarries everywhere to make concrete because it doesn't transport well).
- greggsy 7mo agoIs oil considered a mined mineral, or just shale oil?
- pimlottc 7mo agoPlease reduce the aggregation of map markers. It's not helpful to group every mine in southwest US in a single point in California that makes it look like they are none in any other state. I see this all the time on maps and it's really frustrating. Aggregate markers are helpful when the individual points are actually overlapping on the map, otherwise they obscure location data.
- phillipseamore 7mo agoTrue. Clustering on a map is usually a sign that a map was setup by someone that doesn't use it or has no interest in the data.
- vscode-rest 7mo ago[dead]
- nick49488171 7mo agoAgreed. Huge annoyance when looking for routes on MountainProject as one example.
- charv 7mo agoStrong disagree — aggregate markers were super useful when browsing the map on mobile! Maybe need to add a flag for mobile vs. desktop, but the experience would be a lot worse on mobile without them.
- pimlottc 7mo agoI tried it on mobile. The clustering reduces it to 6 points for all of North America. My phone has over 3 million pixels, surely there’s room for more detail than that.
- Firehawke 7mo agoStrong disagree. Zoom in and the clusters break up. Without the clustering, the map is a total mess when zoomed out.
- alan_sass 7mo agoJust a heads-up that this is nowhere near "all the mines" in Nevada. I've explored quite a few personally, live by some, and that entire list of my memories is missing. NV is also not included in the list of top 10 states which is a clear indicator of missing data fwiw.
- jeffbee 7mo agoI looked for all my local mines and none of them are on here. It seems that all of the listed mines for California are stone quarries. It omits the numerous other mines.
- LowLevelKernel 7mo agoWhy is it active post 2001? What purpose?
- thirtygeo 7mo agoAdd Canada! Every province has a GIS repository of mines
- doe88 7mo agoVery dense, there is no mineshaft gap left!
- utool 7mo agoI was trying to figure out where to send my son to work this summer. This makes it easier. Thank, very cool!
- metalman 7mo agounder 50, actual underground mines for metals, under 175 total open pit and underground mines for metal the real numbers for rock quarys * are hidden, and I must assume that they are also a small portion of the "total" * sell actual blocks of stone vs gravel/fill/agregate
- jmspring 7mo agoThere seem to be more quarries in where I looked (near Reno) than mines. 16:1 in Allegheny is not on there - interesting place. It’s still semi active.
- lattrommi 7mo agoSet state to Ohio. Set status to Abandoned. Wonder why mines located in Ohio, show up in Greenland, Central America and the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. On closer inspection, the Lat/Long are switched on some of these anomalies. I did not check them all.