Anyone Ever Prospect In Abandoned Shafts Or Tunnels?

[klunker]

Jees you guys. when I was a kid I used to play in old mines all the time. and for the dozens of times I went into rotten adits I only was nearly killed a few times. I would love to go back and find some of these old mines ( I'm still a kid) but they have all long since caved in.

 

[GotAU?]

18 minutes ago, klunker said:

Jees you guys. when I was a kid I used to play in old mines all the time. and for the dozens of times I went into rotten adits I only was nearly killed a few times. I would love to go back and find some of these old mines ( I'm still a kid) but they have all long since caved in.

 

Yeah, a lot of my favorite ones caved in as well.  We were surveying some back in the ‘90’s when there was a large local earthquake and it really messed them up.  Too bad also, they had cool stuff still left inside that we didn’t get to take photos of (we weren’t allowed to collect anything).

[King-Of-Bling]

Yes. There is a FB group called Metal Detecting Arizona. A recent post with many pics show a guy and his buddy who repelled down into a shaft. He brings his detector and found a few things. Appears he does this often. Very interesting....

[Chet]

Some of the mine entrances have rat nests present which may carry diseases. 

Years ago some buddies and I repelled into a limestone cave in Alabama. I was the last one squeezing through a long narrow passage when I felt something trying to crawl up my pant leg.  I rolled over on my back to be able to see a large Nutria like rat with my leather boot lace in his mouth. I kicked at it several times before it made off with part of my boot lace. When we returned to climb up out of the cave we found that the rat had chewed the leather handles off an equipment bag. The bag had a hole in it and some leather camera cases inside where missing their straps. We were happy to see that it didn't chew into our repelling line.

[Tony]

11 hours ago, Ethan in Adelaide said:

Good evening fellas,

Last trip To WA I was impressed as there were so many old gold mines, many were 5-30 meters deep, and I saw one shaft actually had two leves (stories). I wonder if someone can dive in and prospect in the tunnel, where there still might be gold behind the tunnel but cannot be found by the early explorers as 100 years ago they didn't have detectors?

Any stories or experience? Surely it Must be dangerous ☠️💀👻

Probably plenty did....but they're not around to answer this thread.....

[Busho]

On 12/18/2023 at 3:55 AM, Gold Seeker said:

One hazard not mentioned and has killed people who go into old mines is poisonous gases that build up down in some mines, you usually can't smell the gas and one lung full is usually enough to kill a person or at least make you pass out and then you die as you breathe more of the bad air.

When the mines were active the miners had ventilation installed to vent out any bad air and pump in fresh air.

What Ridge Runner is saying about some of it went downhill is, when the miners were removing the gold bearing ore they would haul it out of the mine and then had chutes that they dumped it in to get the ore downhill where they would process it to remove the gold, there could still be some gold bearing ore at the bottom of the hill that spilled out or was never processed.

Yeah, the bad air gases. I personally knew a guy who used to go into old reef mine shafts and drives looking for gold with his mate in Victoria Oz. He just made it out, his mate died. He actually was so affected by it mentally, his best mate dying, that he gave up detecting altogether.