Underground recreation.

[pacaver]

BONNE TERRE, Mo. - Rather than head outside for a recreational adventure, athletes in Missouri can head underground — to scuba dive, play tennis and, if one man has his way, even try their hand at subterranean ice skating or kayaking.

Missouri is often called the Cave State, with an international reputation for its natural marvels. But it's the state's mining history that has created huge manmade caverns that have been recast as underground recreational areas.



Here's the full story:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20070 ... recreation

[Herman Miller]

*growl* im to late to post it first lol

[Teresa]

Bonne Terre Mine is really neat. Big pillared rooms, lots and lots of speleothems-- the lead was mined out of Bonne Terre limestone and dolostone. The mine shut down in 1962, so there has been 45 years since they shut off the pumps.

The trip is worth it for one image alone: in one area, cobalt and copper (also found in the ore) has colored the calcite red and aqua. In this area, the calcite has coated old mining hand tools-- shovels, and so forth.

I cannot say what the dive tour is like, but I've been on the walking tour twice...it's really neat.

I know of some of the people involved in the sand mine venture...there is an active, still producing sand mine in my town. This is St. Peter Sandstone -- it is fine, white, and 98%+ pure sand. They used to use pick and shovel methods (it is lightly cemented enough you can crush the stone in your hands). Now, they use hydraulic methods-- essentially big firehoses to turn the sand into a slurry to be sent to the onsite mill. Pretty cool too. Just like in Paint Your Wagon, the original townsite here was undermined by sand operation, and deliberately collapsed early on. Now the mine is an open pit operation.

[fuzzy-hair-man]

If this is a former lead mine are there no concerns about high levels of lead in the air or water (if scuba diving)

[Teresa]

If this is a former lead mine are there no concerns about high levels of lead in the air or water (if scuba diving)

Not really. The dominant ore is galena, or lead sulfide. Due to the fact it is in dolomite/limestone, the pH of the water is over 7.5, almost 8. Galena is for all practical purposes insoluble in an alkali environment. Until recently, the town above used the same aquifer for drinking water. They had to drill a new well, not because of lead, (which they were in spec for) but because of new lowered EPA guidelines for thorium. Not sure how that came down.

Most of the lead exposure here is from the smelters. Now, that stuff is noxious...

It doesn't even smell very metallic down there, and the exposure for a typical one-time visitor is extremely slight. Most of the mine diving here is in old lead mines. Lack of air or sheer stupidity is liable to kill you long before lead. Over the first weekend of Sept.. two young men died at a park made from the oldest lead mine in Missouri. They jumped 65 ft. off a cliff into the water. One of the young men's mother immediately called for the place to be shut down because it was dangerous. Well, if she had taught her son not to jump from high cliffs...

[fuzzy-hair-man]

I just remembered a town in Aust. Broken Hill which mines lots of stuff including lead and kids can't eat thier lunch outside and a large portion of the children have pretty major learning difficulties because of high levels of lead, like you said nasty stuff.
So I was wondering if and why it was safe. so thanks question answered.

You can smell metal? agreed there are things that'll kill you quicker than lead (provided the lead's not from a gun) but having my brain not quite right (some might argue that's the case already) probably scares me more than dying.