Been thinking about this for a while now and thought I would put a cautionary tale about mines into print. Ive been diving 26 years and cave diving for 21 years I was trained by the British Cave Diving Group I was a trainee cave diver for around 18 months as we run apprenticeship based training. Im now an examiner for the Somerset Section CDG. I have dived all sorts over my diving career but have a love for caves, with respect they are a superb environment to work in and explore. But this is about mines, mines are a challenging environment for sure with some superb diving but we have to remember they are a disused industrial workplace and the key to safe mine diving is understanding how the mine was constructed and what the miners did to chase the mineral/ore they wanted. 10-12 years ago Gavin Newman and myself re explored and filmed a large part of Noxon Park Iron Mines. Over many dives we finally connected a large loop in the deep levels of the mine. The deep level fluctuated from summer at around 35 m to winter at about 50m. When I made the connection I had to commit to swimming through what I can only describe as a forest of pit props around 15 m long. The following w-end Gavin and I did the first round trip and the w-end after that Gavins plan was to film the loop. When he arrived at the dodgy forest of pit props what he found horrified him. The entire section had collapsed burying the line for around 10m. What had caused the collapse had been the exhaust gas from our open circuit gear. Exhaust bubbles from 3 man dives in this section over a two week time frame! A year or so after that I returned with a Kiss rebreather to continue the exploration. Last week! I re-visited a mine at the request of a friend. The site had been re-lined around 2007-8. One section of passage around 8-10m long had collapsed onto the line completely burying it, the roof above is extremely unstable and dangerous. Pit props are bent and snapped under the load of rock! A bit like swimming through and under a pile of Jenga blocks ! I believe the collapse in this case is due to road vibration above. The mine is under or very close to a large road. My advice is to leave this site well alone. You have the film and no need to go back. So you can see that diving in mines although can be very rewarding also has a lot of danger. Some of these dangers are completely outside of the divers control. It matters not how good a diver you are or how well you understand the mine and miners what really matters is how well the old miners dug and built what your now swimming in. Dive safe Michael Thomas
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 07:33:56 +0000
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