Show HN: Mines.fyi – all the mines in the US in a leaflet visualization

103 points by irasigman 3 days ago

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.

koshergweilo - 3 days ago

I 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

jedberg - 3 days ago

Same! 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. :)
rpozarickij - 2 days ago

I'm pretty sure for me "mining.fyi" wouldn't have created any associations with landmines (although "mines.fyi" does seem to match the contents of the website closer).
It'd be really interesting to see A/B testing results about what most people associate the word "mines" with (I wouldn't be surprised if that would be landmines in this day and age).
- hogwasher - a day ago
  
  Even "mine.fyi" would be better at not making me think "landmine", although that would instead get read as "belonging to me".fyi.
  I assume this is probably because most people don't see mines (as in gold mines) mentioned in plural very often. Or if someone does refer to multiple mines at once, they usually also specify the type of mine at the same time, like, "the cadmium mines in [country]" or similar. Or if talking about old, abandoned mines in an area, they're usually referred to as such.
  The word "mines" on its own without an adjective usually does mean landmines, I think.
  (I also immediately assumed this was about landmines.)
guessmyname - 3 days ago

Oh! I thought it was landmines too and was very confused + concerned when I saw dots near where I live.
andrew_mason1 - 2 days ago

hey now, landmines destroy stuff below them too
buildbot - 3 days ago

I 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 - 3 days ago
  
  The 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 - 2 days ago
    
    Cleaned up on their own territory. UXO are still a danger in other countries, such as Laos.

pimlottc - 3 days ago

Please 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.

nick49488171 - 3 days ago

Agreed. Huge annoyance when looking for routes on MountainProject as one example.
phillipseamore - 3 days ago

True. 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 - 3 days ago
  
  [dead]
charv - 3 days ago

Strong 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 - 2 days ago
  
  I 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 - 3 days ago

Strong disagree. Zoom in and the clusters break up. Without the clustering, the map is a total mess when zoomed out.
- pimlottc - 2 days ago
  
  There’s a place for clustering but it doesn’t need to be so aggressive

tastyfreeze - 3 days ago

USGS 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/

bombcar - 3 days ago

It 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).

HardwareLust - 3 days ago

I saw your title and my first thought was "Why are there landmines in the US?" lol.

buildbot - 3 days ago

Apparently there are in fact, 0. Publicly, at least.

alan_sass - 3 days ago

Just 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.

SaberTail - 3 days ago

This 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

greggsy - 3 days ago

The state numbers don’t seem to marry up, unless they’re indicative of something else?
snypher - 3 days ago

WIPP isn't really a mine, right? More like an Amazon warehouse.
- SaberTail - 2 days ago
  
  as far as MSHA is concerned it is. They take salt out of the ground to make room for the waste.

kenforthewin - 3 days ago

I'm glad it's those kinds of mines rather than the ones I first thought of.

irasigman - 3 days ago

Downloaded from https://www.msha.gov/data-and-reports/mine-data-retrieval-sy.... Pipe-delimited, updated weekly by MSHA.

alexchamberlain - 3 days ago

There are 3 mines on Manhattan; is that correct?
- leeter - 3 days ago
  
  Based on the info if you click into them, likely no. I would have expected them to be incidental materials from tunneling, but reading the description that's not the case.
- greggsy - 3 days ago
  
  Quarries?

jeffbee - 3 days ago

I 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.

utool - 3 days ago

I was trying to figure out where to send my son to work this summer. This makes it easier. Thank, very cool!

lattrommi - 2 days ago

Set 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.

simonw - 3 days ago

TIL there's a mine within San Francisco city limits! https://mines.fyi/mine/0405261

(I guess technically a "surface mine" for "Construction Sand and Gravel".)

maxbond - 3 days ago

Once you learn how to spot these you'll see them everywhere on road trips and such.
- greggsy - 3 days ago
  
  I 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’?
  - - 3 days ago
    
    [deleted]
dboreham - 3 days ago

The data set includes gravel pits. You can filter them out by selecting "Underground" for "Type".
- defrost - 3 days ago
  
  Wouldn'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.

nektro - 3 days ago

I love the idea of a site like this existing but the expanding dots is a really bad way to visualize this.

jmspring - 2 days ago

There 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.

advisedwang - 3 days ago

This 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 - 3 days ago

And it doesn't include all of those.

w10-1 - 3 days ago

Can't see a thing. Dark on dark in Safari 26.3.

metalman - 2 days ago

under 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

- 3 days ago

[deleted]

thirtygeo - 3 days ago

Add Canada! Every province has a GIS repository of mines

Exuma - 3 days ago

How many of these pose asbestos hazards like the Libby mine?

dboreham - 3 days ago

The Libby mine isn't in the data set because it's no longer operational.
- defrost - 3 days ago
  
  The 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-i...
  * 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 - 3 days ago
  
  The map has a "Status" predicate.

doe88 - 3 days ago

Very dense, there is no mineshaft gap left!

greggsy - 3 days ago

Is oil considered a mined mineral, or just shale oil?

LowLevelKernel - 3 days ago

Why is it active post 2001? What purpose?