One of the largest salt mines in the world exists under Lake Erie (apnews.com)

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[−] wewewedxfgdf 46d ago
Reminds me of the Lake Peigneur disaster in 1980 in Louisiana when an oil drilling rig entered a salt mine located under the lake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcWRO2pyLA8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmHpNTYYWcM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_iZr2-Coqc

[−] observationist 45d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Peigneur

30 minutes of grainy 80s footage in those links - I think it's better to provide at least the wiki link in any sort of discussion forum. If you're on discord or a chat, videos might be the norm, but forums/threaded discussions are text native, so it's better to provide a link to a text resource.

And it's crazy that a 14 inch hole into the salt mine resulted in all that chaos.

[−] pfdietz 46d ago
There's a salt mine mostly under Cayuga Lake in New York, in Lansing. When we bought our current house we had to sign a paper indicating we knew there was a mine somewhere near (underground about a mile to the north.) The risk of sinkholes or deformation from future collapse is always there, although not specifically for us as we are too far away. Development patterns change as you get to the area where the mine is: fewer (and older) homes, more commercial development.
[−] bcjdjsndon 45d ago

> The risk of sinkholes or deformation from future collapse is always there, although not specifically for us as we are too far away

That's why they made you sign the waiver obviously

[−] pfdietz 45d ago
I think there's a regulation that anyone within a certain distance has to show informed consent, and the distance is set generously.
[−] move-on-by 45d ago
The thing about active mines is that they expand. I’m not saying you should be concerned, but “it’s a mine away” is just a single data point
[−] pfdietz 45d ago
This mine is only allowed to expand under the lake, precisely because of concern about subsidence.
[−] SilverElfin 46d ago
What happens when they run out of salt? All the salt they put on the roads must end up back in the lakes but not in a way that is as easy to extract, right?
[−] yetihehe 46d ago
When that one mine runs out of salt? It will be closed. We as a humanity will not run out of salt, some places have the opposite problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Kali

"According to the Werra Potash Mining Museum in Heringen, Monte Kali has been in operation since 1976; as of August 2016, it covered 98 hectares (240 acres) and contained approximately 201 million tonnes of salt, with another 900 tonnes being added every hour and 7.2 million tonnes a year."

[−] bcjdjsndon 45d ago
That's insane. These spill heaps always end up killing people, all so the mining company didn't have to pay to dispose of it.

I mean, you could sell salt ffs why just dump it? And what happens when it rains, surely it's absolutely fucking that soil for years to come

[−] kakacik 46d ago
Out of many worries about this world and its future, running out of salt is really at the bottom of the list.

You can always extract it form the sea by mere evaporation like our ancestors did. Plus salt deposits in the ground all over the world are massive, we had salty seas for billions of years.

[−] defrost 46d ago
Evaporative ponds account for millions of tonnes per annum ... and that's just from two sites:

* https://www.riotinto.com/en/operations/anz/western-australia...

* https://australianminingreview.com.au/features/dampier-salt-...

[−] jbstack 46d ago
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. People shouldn't get punished for asking questions.
[−] cr1895 46d ago
Would highly recommend the book "Salt" by Mark Kurlansky. I never realized how influential salt was to the course of human history.
[−] loufe 45d ago
In my undergrad I did a grad course on advanced mine ventilation, modeling the fluid dynamics of clearing out blast gasses from a room and pillar salt mine in Southern Ontario. The company had reached out to the professor a year or two ago asking for help understanding why it took so long for blast gasses to clear (which is obviously something to minimize). I was pretty proud I was able to reproduce the measured air velocities with my model, but while preparing my presentation at the end of the semester, I read the a month before I started my project the mine had switched to road headers (mechanical rock breaking, appropriate only in soft rock mines like salt, potash, and coal) and so my research, while interesting, seemed a little pointless.

They have some really unique challenges in salt mines, for those who enjoy reading into it. "Les Îles de la Madelaine" in the St. Lawrence seaway is a kitesurfing destination with an absolutely incredible salt mine, for anyone curious[1].

#1 - https://amq-inc.com/en/mines-seleine-quebecs-only-salt-mine/

[−] joecool1029 46d ago
The largest salt mine in the world is under Lake Huron: https://www.compassminerals.com/who-we-are/locations/goderic...
[−] mauvehaus 46d ago
The last chapter in the lives of a lot of Great Lakes freighters is hauling salt. Apparently it’s no better for ships than it is for cars.

If you get a chance, the steamship Mather is docked near the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland. It was the flagship of the Cleveland Cliffs line, and was spared the fate of hauling salt. You can tour it, and if you book ahead, you can get an extended belowdecks tour that includes machinery spaces that you don’t see on the regular tour.

[−] guidedlight 46d ago
It has always amazed me that the US is so unusually rich in a variety of natural resources.
[−] thom 46d ago
I spent part of my childhood in Winsford, a salt mining town in the UK (its other claim to fame being that it was where Neville Southall played before Everton). Every time I pass a yellow bin of salt for gritting the roads, I get to feel a little bit of nostalgia (before falling over because councils no longer have enough money to grit the roads and pavements).
[−] bediger4000 45d ago
If you're ever in central Kansas, which I personally do not recommend, you can take a tour of a salt mine under Hutchinson, KS.

https://underkansas.org/

It's worth your time and money, unless you have a particularly vivid imagination. You ride a skip 600 feet down.

[−] adamgordonbell 46d ago
Windsor Salt, is mined from under lake erie in Windsor, Ontario. You used to be able to do a tour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windsor_Salt_Mine

[−] therealdrag0 46d ago
My initial reaction was fear.

But then I wondered if modern mining engineering is a solved problem? In that they mostly know how to make safe tunnels?

Then I looked up how deep Erie is and it’s pretty shallow, with an average depth of 62 ft!

[−] therealdrag0 45d ago
Is all our salt mining and run off making ocean saltier?
[−] rob74 45d ago
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