Hi IM's!

I am hoping to gain a little assistance with an underground mine map I have.



Hopefully the numbers can be seen. If not, A lot of the tunnels are running left/right or right/left depending on the map. I seem to understand the abbreviation after the numbers, ex. XCW and DS, Cross-cut west, Direction South is what I presume.

My big issue is trying to understand the 4 digit numbers used to properly traverse the tunnels. They all seem to start with 5XXX. They dont seem to match up with any measurement that I can think of and so I wonder if they are just a made up number or not to show each level and or horizontal tunnel of the mine.

Does 5136 mean its a lower tunnel to 5336? If this is the case I am just trying to better understand why these numbers are chosen and so on.


Thanks everyone!

Might be distance in feet of each main tunnel... and they look like haulage tunnels for all the other side tunnels and shorter tunnels.

Hello,

Unfortunately I am really not familiar with all of the units of measurements used in mining in Canada, but from looking that map over, the 5xxx DS numbers look to be elevation units. It looks like it would represent the depth of the mine and levels. This can be confusing as even in the US, hard rock and coal mines even treat elevation differently. Usually in hard rock mines, the elevation units would be feet from the top of the mine. So the 100 foot level would be 100 feet deep from the surface, the 200 foot level would be 200 feet deep from the surface. Coal mines chart elevation in feet above sea level. So the 800 foot level would be above the 600 foot level. I have also seen maps of hard rock mines chart elevation in terms of feet above / below sea level, so it can get confusing.

In this particular map, this looks like it is a view from the surface (like a satellite view or conventional atlas map). The lots would represent the properly lots from the surface. This mine map looks to be a hard rock mine, probably a single vein of ore which dips in the south east direction (assuming North is up). So the more south east you go, the deeper the mine goes underground. Think of it like a flat plane of ore which is inclined. The 5xxx DS numbers appear to be the depth. Like you are guessing, the 5136 DS level would be higher in elevation than the 4936 DS level, but because this is a vein and it is inclined, the levels are not directly on top of one another. If you were to stand inside of a the mine at any of the levels, the ore body would be inclined at 40 - 70 degrees. The roof of your level would not be directly on top of you because it is inclined. Also the depth of each level doesn't change but the vein is irregular. Thus walking on the 5136 DS level, you generally would not get any deeper no matter where you are on the map on that level. While it might look like the 5136 DS level is going up and down based on what I was saying on how the vein is a plane, the vein can be irregular and thus each level is generally at one fixed depth but the tunnels / drifts are deviating within the vein.

I would guess that Canada would use meters, but 200 meter levels is pretty big and would have to be a more modern operation. I'm not sure how modern this mine is, the name, or where it is located, but it looks to be a large scale operation. Seeing a copy of the full map might be helpful too or if this was a mine on top of a mountain to try to figure out what those elevation units are. I hope this helps.

Miner Greg