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Summary Of State Grants For Mine Mapping - Utah
The State of Utah received a $52,000 grant. During the period October 1, 2003, through December 31, 2006, Utah Geological Survey (UGS) project staff completed the following tasks:
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Created a database of 448 abandoned coal mines and prospects from throughout the State of Utah, including information on the name of the coalfield and 7.5' topographic quadrangle where it is located, the cadastral location (Section, Township, Range), coal bed mined, the years of operation, last operator, and if there was a mine map, the name of the scanned image file name. Some maps were found from each of the 18 Utah coalfields that have been mined. The following numbers of mines were identified for each field: Alton (18), Book Cliffs (87), Coalville (23), Emery (15), Harmony (2), Henry Mountains (4), Henrys Fork (7), Kaiparowits Plateau (28), Kolob (47), Lost Creek (3), Salina Canyon (6), San Juan (2), Sego (14), Sterling (3), Tabby Mountain (8), Vernal (37), Wales (7), and Wasatch Plateau (137). No coal mining has occurred in the Goose Creek, Grouse Creek, La Sal, or Mount Pleasant coalfields.
- Working cooperatively with the Utah State Office of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining, they collected 1,350 maps (includes numerous duplicates of different scales and vintages) and scanned the best and most recent maps covering 262 of the 448 coal mines. The mine maps come from the following 12 coalfields: Alton (13), Book Cliffs (79), Coalville (13), Emery (6), Henry Mountains (4), Kaiparowits Plateau (8), Kolob (13), Salina Canyon (4), Sego (7), Tabby Mountain (1), Vernal (9), and Wasatch Plateau (95); some of these maps cover more than one mine so the total number of maps is less than 262. No mine maps were found for six coalfields: Harmony, Henrys Fork, Lost Creek, San Juan, Sterling, and Wales.
- For 121 of the 262 mine maps, they were able to identify and digitize known location points, such as section corners, to create world files so that the scanned images for those maps can be transformed from raster to vector images.
- They created a map-driven web site to allow the public to access the collection of mine maps at the Utah Geological Survey; a prototype of the web site is currently in UGS review for imminent release.
This project's four completed tasks provide a new publicly available digital abandoned-coal-mine map database of 262 mine maps from 12 of the 18 Utah coalfields that have seen past coal mining. This database provides coal mine maps for nearly 58 percent of the known past coal mines and prospects in Utah. From anywhere in the world where there is an internet connection, an interested individual will be able to access abandoned-coal-mine maps from Utah. This should help mining companies; county, state, and federal land-use mangers and planners; and the general public to understand the nature, extent, and potential hazards from past coal mining in Utah.
In working with the maps, some of them are too large to scan on a flat-bed scanner with a 42-inch width limit without folding and scanning in more than one part; some of these large old maps are also mounted on canvas which makes them impossible to scan. Also, some of the large mine maps create images that are so large that they cannot be rotated, stretched, and vectorized using identified control points. Finally, almost six mine maps on average were reviewed for each map scanned to determine the most recent and complete version of the mine map for scanning, a labor-intensive process. The UGS is working to make images of all mine maps available to the public.
A digital, map-driven version of the mine map database is in review for posting in the near future on the UGS web site. The website will be located as follows:
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