How many abandoned mines are in Alaska?

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Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Alaska

Alaska has 5,144 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1946–2004, including 451 mine openings (shafts, adits and air shafts), across 29 counties. OSMRE's abandoned mine land inventory lists 137 problems in the state, 38 of them not yet reclaimed. MSHA's register carries 837 Alaska mines with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps of Alaska, every OSMRE abandoned mine land problem, and every MSHA-registered mine with status Abandoned, by county. Each county page lists the named features and links every MSHA mine to its own record.

Mapped mine features (USGS): 5,144
Mine openings: 451
OSMRE problems unreclaimed: 38
MSHA mines marked abandoned: 837

29 counties with mapped features322 features carry a name472 prospect pitsmaps published 1946–2004 137 OSMRE problems, 99 reclaimed 1 MSHA mines abandoned and sealed

By countyranked by mapped USGS features

County	USGS features	Openings	Named	OSMRE problems	Unreclaimed	MSHA abandoned
Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area	1,316	25	25	5	4	1
Fairbanks North Star Borough	617	32	17	9	1	94
Matanuska-Susitna Borough	441	51	45	33	6	61
Anchorage Municipality	348	6	7	0	0	29
Kenai Peninsula Borough	342	25	47	10	0	38
Juneau City and Borough	281	184	25	4	3	14
Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area	239	2	8	2	0	63
Nome Census Area	200	7	33	0	0	41
Wrangell City and Borough	191	1	0	0	0	1
Hoonah-Angoon Census Area	185	9	6	1	1	0
Chugach Census Area	173	55	32	12	2	0
Ketchikan Gateway Borough	168	12	15	9	4	12
Petersburg Borough	131	2	1	3	3	0
Southeast Fairbanks Census Area	87	0	1	0	0	11
Sitka City and Borough	76	7	0	4	4	6
Bethel Census Area	63	4	11	4	4	8
Copper River Census Area	61	18	20	8	1	0
Northwest Arctic Borough	53	3	6	0	0	9
Denali Borough	37	1	9	19	3	9
Yakutat City and Borough	29	0	0	0	0	1
Kusilvak Census Area	24	0	4	0	0	0
Haines Borough	20	0	0	5	0	5
Kodiak Island Borough	18	2	0	0	0	2
Skagway Municipality	10	4	6	2	0	2
North Slope Borough	9	0	1	5	0	10
Aleutians West Census Area	8	0	0	0	0	3
Aleutians East Borough	7	1	1	0	0	124
Lake and Peninsula Borough	3	0	0	0	0	1
Dillingham Census Area	2	0	1	0	0	6
Yukon River	0	0	0	0	0	115
Cook Inlet Susitna	0	0	0	0	0	51
Kenai Peninsula	0	0	0	0	0	26
Copper River	0	0	0	0	0	24
Seward Peninsula	0	0	0	0	0	20
Valdez-Cordova	0	0	0	0	0	14
Kodiak	0	0	0	0	0	8
Northern Alaska	0	0	0	0	0	7
Northwestern Alaska	0	0	0	0	0	7
Bristol Bay	0	0	0	0	0	5
Skagway-Hoonah-Angoon	0	0	0	0	0	3
Alaska Peninsula	0	0	0	0	0	1
Bering Sea	0	0	0	0	0	1
Bristol Bay	0	0	0	0	0	1
Kuskokwim River	0	0	0	0	0	1
Various Regions	0	0	0	0	0	1
Wade Hampton	0	0	0	0	0	1

What the features are

Mine openings

shafts, adits, air shafts, portals and vertical openings: the ways into underground workings

525 9.9%
Prospect pits and trenches

shallow exploration diggings that never became a mine

472 8.9%
Mines and surface workings

labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings

570 10.8%
Quarries, gravel and borrow pits

construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction

3,140 59.5%
Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob

what mining left above ground

508 9.6%
Mills, tipples and facilities

processing plants and hazardous structures

37 0.7%
Other reclamation problems

highwalls, subsidence, polluted or clogged water, fires, slides and gases in OSMRE's inventory

29 0.5%

By source vocabularythe publishers' own terms

Feature type	Class	Source	Features
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	2,067
Gravel Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	619
Prospect Pit	Prospect pits and trenches	USGS topo symbol (point)	465
Gravel Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (area)	393
Adit	Mine openings	USGS topo symbol (point)	384
Tailings - Undifferentiated	Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob	USGS topo symbol (area)	272
Open Pit Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (point)	185
Tailings - Placer	Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob	USGS topo symbol (area)	163
Placer Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (area)	112
Open Pit Mine or Quarry	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (point)	98
Mine Shaft	Mine openings	USGS topo symbol (point)	67
Open Pit Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (area)	60
Tailings - Dredge	Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob	USGS topo symbol (area)	57
Placer Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (point)	43
P1 Vertical Openings	Mine openings	OSMRE e-AMLIS problem	33
P1 Portals	Mine openings	OSMRE e-AMLIS problem	33
Quarry	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	22
Disturbed Surface	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (area)	20
Strip Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (area)	18
Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (point)	18
P2 Hazardous Equip & Facilities	Mills, tipples and facilities	OSMRE e-AMLIS problem	17
Quarry	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (area)	15
Borrow Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	13
P1 Hazardous Equip & Facilities	Mills, tipples and facilities	OSMRE e-AMLIS problem	9
Mill Site	Mills, tipples and facilities	USGS topo symbol (point)	8
Prospect Pit	Prospect pits and trenches	USGS topo symbol (area)	7
Coal Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (point)	7
P2 Dangerous Highwalls	Other reclamation problems	OSMRE e-AMLIS problem	7
Mine Dump	Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob	USGS topo symbol (area)	7
P2 Vertical Openings	Mine openings	OSMRE e-AMLIS problem	4
P2 Portals	Mine openings	OSMRE e-AMLIS problem	4
Borrow Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (area)	4
P3 Spoil Area	Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob	OSMRE e-AMLIS problem	3
Disturbed Surface - Pit	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (area)	3
P2 Industrial/Residential Waste	Other reclamation problems	OSMRE e-AMLIS problem	3
P3 Equipment Facility	Other reclamation problems	OSMRE e-AMLIS problem	3
P2 Dangerous Impoundments	Other reclamation problems	OSMRE e-AMLIS problem	3
Open Pit Mine or Quarry	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (area)	3
Strip Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (point)	3
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (area)	2

How to read these numbers

A USGS feature is a symbol on a historical topographic map, there when the map was surveyed; it may since have been sealed, reclaimed, built over or reopened, and the map does not say which. An OSMRE row is a problem the abandoned mine land program tracks, not a mine. An MSHA mine is a registered operation whose operator reported abandonment, a record that starts in the 1970s. The three overlap and are never added together. Counties are assigned from each feature's coordinates against the Census 2023 county boundaries. The full method and every source are on the national page.

Sources

USGS, Consolidated Prospect- and Mine-Related Features from 7.5- and 15-Minute Topographic Quadrangle Maps of the United States (USMIN)
597,612 point and area features digitized from about 106,350 historical topographic maps published 1886–2006; public domain (CC0). A feature is a map symbol, not a field-verified site, and the map does not say whether it was still worked.
USGS Fact Sheet 2025–3003, The Abandoned Mine Inventory of the United States
States that as of 2025 there is no comprehensive national inventory of abandoned mine features, and that the detailed national database now being built will not be published.
OSMRE, Abandoned Mine Land Inventory System (e-AMLIS), public Problems layer
One row per abandoned mine land problem in a problem area, with its type, funding program and reclamation status; mostly coal mined before the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. Coordinates are the problem area's.
MSHA, Mines dataset (Mine Data Retrieval System)
Every mine registered with MSHA since the 1970s; a mine reads Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed when its operator reported that status. Refreshed weekly.
US Census Bureau, 2023 cartographic county boundaries (1:500,000)
Each feature's county is assigned by its coordinates against these boundaries, not copied from the source file.
GAO-20-238, Abandoned Hardrock Mines (March 2020)
Federal agencies had identified at least 140,000 abandoned hardrock mine features on federal land and estimated more than 390,000 more not yet captured in their databases.