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 Post subject: wa wa
PostPosted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 7:23 am 
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Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2005 9:17 am
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Location: Olyphant, PA
oh there is definately a water table up there... none of us know how many mines are below that fire.. i mean in the same case as Archbald there can be a huge manway that runs under the entire fire even lower then the one they found thats just collecting water for 50 60 years... all the steam indicates for sure that there is a water source even if its partiles of moisture in the soil... (the kur plunk of course violates this theory). neverthless it would be interesting to see how the water table or water abundance in the ground here is modified and effected after being superheated for so long by the fired coal culm and shale.

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 Post subject: water and tunnels....
PostPosted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 10:07 am 
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Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 2:34 pm
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Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
when they dug the first trench they hit the main slope that went down right there. i was over the contractors house that was hired by osm to dig the thing. he took a bunch of cool pics of the trench being dug. when they hit the slope he took some pics looking into it. sad, it was in real nice shape. the rock strata was real nice there, not "shaley" as most of them close to the surface. oh well, figures. we'll have to go up there again for another photo mission. see ya

chris


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 1:24 am 
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Joined: Fri Jul 08, 2005 12:41 pm
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Location: Hard coal region, PA
i bet it looks awesome up there when it's snowing....... you can probably hear a constant sizzle from the snow hitting the hot ground.


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 11:38 pm 
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Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
you can really see where it is now burning at night. jen and i went up there after a movie tonight to try out a toy i borrowed from work today. blue burning methane is coming up not only from the center now but from over by the woods now too. nice. there are a bunch of fissures ( natural vents) that are blowing steam and heat. that borehole i took the cap off of and looked down now has the entire lid broken off. wonder who did that. everytime we were there we replaced the plug on the cap, now the entire cap is gone. anyways i got this cool thermometer that is a gun type device that has a lazer on it. you point the thing at a target and it tells the temp on the display. i tried it down the bore hole but the steam threw it off and it only read 135 degrees. there is a pretty good size fissure by that borehole and youre not going to believe this..... the surface temp about 4 feet away was 73 degrees, 1 foot away was 226 degrees and directly in the hole the thing was measuring between 785 and 910 degrees. thats pretty hot! the hole is only about 2 feet deep then turns in to a crack where the gas is coming from. dont want trip in that hole! it has quite the range on it too. we read the mound in the middle at 135 degrees where the flames are. its not one of those junky ones you see in the auto parts store, this thing was like 500 bucks. needless to say i had to sneak it out from work. i had this big adjustable wrench to take the plugs off the boreholes to check them. jen was carrying it to use for protection from big critters, i told her i dont think youre gonna run into any animals around here. they are long gone. that was pretty funny. thats all for todays adventure.

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 Post subject: critter attack
PostPosted: Thu Sep 29, 2005 9:24 am 
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Location: Olyphant, PA
remember chris i saw a bear last year 300 feet from the orange fence... ya never know.

and we have one of those here @ work to i shouldve thought of that
remember when they had that big bulldozer up there a couple weeks ago pushing in piles when the fire jumped? they prbably drove over the borehole accidentaly and snapped the cap off

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Sep 29, 2005 10:13 am 
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Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
oh yea forgot about that. also went up there about a week ago with mike and there was another brush fire, but it burned out. it is real close to the road you drive up now. is that a sewer line under the road or a water line? cause that might be a concern for them, its getting close

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 Post subject: burning poo
PostPosted: Fri Sep 30, 2005 8:00 am 
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Location: Olyphant, PA
thats a sewer line... its the lateral sewer connection to Moosic Lakes and the surrounding communities

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 9:41 pm 
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Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
was down osm today discussing the fire with john mack, the civil engineer incharge of the fire there. seems im paying back osm for everything they did for me. he wanted a cd of all the pics we took up there. both ground and aerial. he liked the burning vein of coal pics. he is doing a powerpoint presentation in washington and wanted to use a bunch of our pics. how can i refuse. they help us out so much and when we are down there they like to hear our stories. it was funny today, all the mine engineers were standing around me in a circle as i was telling them about our time in underwood and the pa tunnel, and with the black damp. they love us! its cool cause they dont think we are a bunch of punk ass kids playing in coal mines, they respect our work. anyways, he said the vein of coal outcrops before it hits the road leading up to the fire, where there is a burried sewer line. but it may be in a vein deeper also, which would suck. he said they have a real problem there and olyphant borough is really on their ass, but they have no money so thats why he is going to washington. so it seems our pics are helping out their cause, which makes us feel good that we are helping somebody out. and some people think we just run around mines......HA, ok see ya later

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 11:57 pm 
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Location: Hard coal region, PA
Excellent! That's really sweet. never thought about it hitting a deeper vein...... but where's the water?? maybe it wouldn't really matter... the fire would just evaporate it around the coal and keep moving?


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Sep 09, 2007 9:14 pm 
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Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
well for those wanting to see what progress is being made at the olyphant mine fire, here ya go:

http://www.ironminers.com/mineforum/vie ... php?t=2354

they are doing alot of blasting work which will make for a 130 foot deep trench similar to what they did in carbondale to cut off the fire.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 10:35 am 
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Joined: Mon Jun 20, 2005 11:33 pm
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Location: Above the Sterling Hill Mine
Are they digging this deep enough to reach the other vein? Or do we know the fire hasn't reached the other vein? 130 feet deep doesn't sound like it is deep enough to reach a second vein if they already have to dig down pretty low to hit the first vein. They would have to dig the trench ahead of the fire to catch it. So that requires digging deep the start with.

Miner Greg


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 2:36 pm 
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Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
my mistake, the trench will be 176 feet deep to be exact and will capture both the dunmore no. 1 and 2 veins in which its burning in. we were up there yesterday and got a video of them blasting some rock. awesome video but too long to upload as we had to start the camera 3 minutes before the blast and run away!

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 2:26 pm 
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Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
So we have been doing some aerial photography work with OSM and heres what they did with one of our early shots. the yellow shows where the trench is going and the grade lines. it looks much different now, we are going up again on monday ill post some more pics then.

Image

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 7:03 pm 
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Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
was up flying yesterday to get some photos of the fire. they have the dragline up there to begin digging the large trench. the whole hill side is almost totally blasted away and level now, so the dragline can come in and begin its work. they brought it up from a strip mine/quarry in forest city i hear.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 9:49 pm 
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Joined: Mon Jun 20, 2005 11:33 pm
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Location: Above the Sterling Hill Mine
Wow, they are really putting all expense into making sure this fire is put out. Would have been a lot cheaper if they did it right the first time, but I am glad they are committed to putting it out now. We really don't need another Centralia.


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