Hallo aus Amerika!

[CTMike]

Ich bin Mike aus Connecticut und mir wurde der Link zu dieser Seite von einem Bekannten geschickt. Ich bin Mitglied einer US Gruppe die sich "Ironminers" nennen.Unsere Webseite lautet wie folgt: http://www.ironminers.com/. So weit habe ich bereits viele Mienen in den USA und Kanada aufgesucht, aber ich wuerde gerne auch weitere Mienen ausserhalb der USA und Kanada besichtigen, vorallem auch in Deutschland. Bevorzugt sind Mienen die vor dem 19. Jahrhundert verlassen wurden.
Sollte jmd. Interesse haben Fotos oder Kommentare(sowohl auf deutsch als auch auf englisch moeglich) auf unsere Webseite zu setzen, wuerden wir uns sehr darueber freuen. http://www.ironminers.com/mineforum/viewforum.php?f=15
Mike

[MichaP]

Hi Mike,

a very warm welcome to you. Looks like as it is in the mines in your area a little warmer than in Germany? What temperature you have there underground? By the way ... with that equipment you will not see that much in Germany, it a little colder I think.

[CTMike]

Thank you for the warm welcome
The temperature in mines near where I live is usually 55F about 15C. The mines in Arizona can be very hot, you will be sweating in just a t shirt deep underground! However, our next big trip is to a copper mine near the canadian border that will require snow shoes to get to and the water in the mine is frozen, you walk on ice, very cold mine!
I am very impressed with your website. Any plans to visit America? -Mike

[MichaP]

That'S a little warmer, we have around 8 degrees Celsius. I have to say that I'm a little confused about your understanding of safety. For me your pictures are looking for some risky trips. I can't see any protection things, what are you doing in the case of an accident? Do you have any backup systems, emergency processes and so on?
Please don't take this questions as a charge, it's only a question about the standards of the US mining research.

[hungerlieb]

Thank you for the warm welcome
Any plans to visit America? -Mike

Hello Mike,

a few of us allredy have visit some mines in your country. Schnaff (JensM) showed us attractive pictures of Utah for example.

Shortly I´ve imgine the face of the airportofficer, at the moment he see our equipment... greetings from Guantanamo

[Banks]

Hallo aus Pennsylvania!

I'm friends with CTMike, and was led here through him. I come from the Anthracite Coal region of Pennsylvania. I am currently an active coal miner and am also involved with a sister group of Mike's, www.undergroundminers.com . We do the abandoned coal mine work of our North Eastern US mine exploration / documentation teams. Hope to meet some good people and share some good information!

Thanks,
Banks

[CTMike]

Saftey is the most important aspect of mine exploring. Our gear and techniques are constantly evolving as abandoned mine exploring is still a fairly new thing in the eastern USA. Many of the pictures are from when we first started about 4 years ago and you can see we are lacking much important gear exploring our local mines. Now as we expand to further and deeper mines we have adapted the saftey practices of the caving groups and active mine standards, and I think Banks will agree with me on that. We have much to learn from established abandoned mine exploration groups that have many years of experience and we always have an open mind.

Utah is a great place for mine exploration! I have a ''wrangler'' off road jeep in storage in salt lake city Utah with all mining gear, SRT and camping gear in it ready for us to return and continue exploring!

wer von euch hat noch amerika besucht und hat dort verlassene minen besucht und was waren eure eindruecke?

[Pochknabe]

Hi Mike,
I study mining at a technical university located at the Harz Mountains in central Germany. An area with over thousand years of mining history, mainly on metalliferous ore deposits and some industrial minerals. There is no active mining anymore, but a lot of abandoned mines waiting to be explored. So if you come over to Germany feel free to contact me.

Achim

[CTMike]

Hi Achim- I would be very interested in doing some exploring in the Harz mountains, I will probably be in Germany in the summer. My girlfriend is from Kassel and has a car there so your area would probably be a great place to start! What are the laws or restrictions regarding exploring the mines? are they posted no trespassing? are they mostly accesible by adits or shafts? do you need a 4x4 to get out to the mines? -Mike

[Banks]

Yeah, I couldn't agree with Mike more in the evolution of our safety gear. We always have necessary gear on hand in case of any type of accident... Not only that, but we always have a responsible, knowledgeable crew on standby somewhere in the area to come retrieve us if we don't come out...

In the coal mines in particular, we have to watch for bad air and have a thorough understanding of all aspects of mine ventilation. We carry CSE SR-100 self rescuers in the "coal holes" just like we're required to have in the active coal mines that provide 1 hour of oxygen to escape from a poor air situation.

On another note with mine rescue - I am personally good friends with the head of the Pennsylvania Anthracite Mine Rescue team and the members of it----if it ever came to that.

There's a LOT of aspects to mine safety, and I feel confident our teams are very conscious of all of them. You guys don't have to worry about us being just a bunch of jackasses running around in old mines.. after all, the State has even come to respect our practices.

[MichaP]

Guys, that sounds really much better than the picture I saw on your page looks like. Very good.
If you come to germany let me know, we will find a way to meet and go underground, I guess.
And by the way we have a lot of interesting historical mining places above the surface.

[CTMike]

Micha,
sounds good! I would be very much interested in any above ground ruins as well, especially old blast furnaces for iron production and such. We will be in Europe in august. -Mike

[Naheländer]

Hello Mike,

if you interested in blast furnaces of the 19./20. century, there is the fascinating cultural site of the Voeklinger Huette (http://www.voelklinger-huette.org/en/welcome/), a world cultural heritage monument, in the south-west of Germany in the Saarland.
Close of Voeklingen are the still working blast furnances of Dillingen and in the neighbour region lorraine (France) in the near of Luxembourg are the blast furnance areas of Hyange and Florange (Minette region). But the half part of this blast furnances are actually disused for the upcoming trimester in cause of the finance world crisis.

Daniel