Mining Incidents
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Davis County, Iowa

Davis County, Iowa has 15 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1956–1979, including 1 mine openings (shafts, adits and air shafts). OSMRE's abandoned mine land inventory lists 99 problems in the county, 55 of them not yet reclaimed. MSHA's register carries 1 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Davis County, every OSMRE abandoned mine land problem in the county, and every MSHA-registered mine here with status Abandoned. Named features are listed below; unnamed ones are counted by type. Locations are deliberately not shown: this page says what abandoned workings are in the county, not where to find them. They are dangerous and should not be entered.

Mapped mine features (USGS)
15
Mine openings
1
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
55
MSHA mines marked abandoned
1
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits5 quadrangle maps, published 1956–1979 99 OSMRE problems, 44 reclaimed 0 MSHA mines abandoned and sealed
What the features are
  1. Mine openings
    shafts, adits, air shafts, portals and vertical openings: the ways into underground workings
    2 1.8%
  2. Mines and surface workings
    labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
    12 10.5%
  3. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    2 1.8%
  4. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob
    what mining left above ground
    33 28.9%
  5. Other reclamation problems
    highwalls, subsidence, polluted or clogged water, fires, slides and gases in OSMRE's inventory
    65 57.0%
OSMRE abandoned mine land problems99 on inventory
Problem area Problem Status
Barker P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Pending
Brian Wilson P1 Dangerous Highwalls In Reclamation
Brian Wilson P1 Dangerous Piles & Embankments In Reclamation
Brian Wilson P1 Hazardous Water Bodies Reclamation Completed
Brian Wilson P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments In Reclamation
Brian Wilson P2 Hazardous Water Bodies Reclamation Pending
Brian Wilson P3 Pits Reclamation Pending
Brian Wilson P3 Spoil Area In Reclamation
Carbon P1 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Pending
Carbon P1 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Pending
Carbon P1 Hazardous Water Bodies Reclamation Pending
Carbon P2 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Pending
Carbon P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Pending
Carbon P2 Hazardous Water Bodies Reclamation Pending
Carbon P3 Haul Road Reclamation Pending
Carbon P3 High Wall Reclamation Pending
Carbon P3 Industrial/Residential Waste Reclamation Pending
Carbon P3 Pits Reclamation Pending
Carbon P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Pending
Carbon West P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Pending
Carbon West P2 Hazardous Water Bodies Reclamation Pending
Carbon West P3 Haul Road Reclamation Pending
Carbon West P3 High Wall Reclamation Pending
Carbon West P3 Pits Reclamation Pending
Carbon West P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Pending
Chalberg P1 Clogged Stream Lands Reclamation Pending
Chalberg P1 Clogged Streams Reclamation Pending
Chalberg P1 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Pending
Chalberg P1 Hazardous Water Bodies Reclamation Pending
Chalberg P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Pending
Chalberg P2 Hazardous Water Bodies Reclamation Pending
Chalberg P3 Haul Road Reclamation Pending
Chalberg P3 High Wall Reclamation Pending
Chalberg P3 Pits Reclamation Pending
Chalberg P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Pending
Copeland P1 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Pending
Copeland P2 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Pending
Copeland P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Pending
Copeland P3 High Wall Reclamation Pending
Copeland P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Pending
Eakins P3 High Wall Reclamation Pending
Eakins P3 Pits Reclamation Pending
Eakins P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Pending
Fisk P1 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Completed
Hall P2 Clogged Streams Reclamation Completed
Hall P2 Hazardous Water Bodies Reclamation Completed
Hall P3 Pits Reclamation Completed
Hall P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Completed
Harrington P1 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Completed
Harrington P1 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Completed
Harrington P1 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Completed
Harrington P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Completed
Harrington P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Completed
Harrington P3 High Wall Reclamation Completed
Harrington P3 High Wall Reclamation Completed
Harrington P3 Industrial/Residential Waste Reclamation Completed
Harrington P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Completed
Harrington P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Completed
Harrington P3 Water Problems Reclamation Completed
Jones P2 Clogged Stream Lands In Reclamation
Jones P2 Clogged Streams Reclamation Completed
Jones P2 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Completed
Jones P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Completed
Jones P2 Industrial/Residential Waste Reclamation Completed
Jones P2 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
McClure P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Pending
McClure P3 Haul Road Reclamation Pending
McClure P3 High Wall Reclamation Pending
McClure P3 Pits Reclamation Pending
McClure P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Pending
McNiel P1 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Completed
McNiel P1 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Completed
McNiel P1 Hazardous Water Bodies Reclamation Completed
McNiel P2 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Completed
McNiel P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Completed
Northup P2 Clogged Stream Lands Reclamation Completed
Northup P2 Clogged Streams Reclamation Completed
Northup P3 Haul Road Reclamation Completed
Northup North P1 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Completed
Northup North P1 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Completed
Northup North P1 Hazardous Water Bodies Reclamation Completed
Northup North P2 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Completed
Northup North P3 High Wall Reclamation Completed
Northup North P3 Pits Reclamation Completed
Northup North P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Completed
Northup North P3 Water Problems Reclamation Completed
Schulz P1 Hazardous Water Bodies Reclamation Completed
Sloan P1 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Completed
Sloan P1 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Sloan P2 Clogged Stream Lands Reclamation Completed
Sloan P2 Clogged Streams Reclamation Completed
Sloan Emergency P1 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
South Iowa P1 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Pending
South Iowa P1 Hazardous Water Bodies Reclamation Pending
South Iowa P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Pending
South Iowa P2 Hazardous Water Bodies Reclamation Pending
South Iowa P3 Haul Road Reclamation Pending
South Iowa P3 Pits Reclamation Pending
South Iowa P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Pending

Problem types carry OSMRE's priority prefix: P1 and P2 are threats to health, safety and property, P3 is environmental. A problem area is a cluster of problems reclaimed as one project; several rows can share one location.

MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned1 on register
  1. Lewis Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Douds Stone Inc · MSHA ID 1301067
    Abandoned

Status and date are as reported to MSHA by the operator. Each mine's own page carries its accident, citation and inspection record.

By source vocabularythe publishers' own terms
Feature type Features
P3 Spoil Area 13
P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments 11
P3 Pits 9
P1 Dangerous Piles & Embankments 9
P3 High Wall 9
P1 Dangerous Highwalls 7
P1 Hazardous Water Bodies 7
P2 Hazardous Water Bodies 6
P3 Haul Road 6
P2 Dangerous Highwalls 5
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 4
P2 Clogged Streams 4
Disturbed Surface - Pit 4
P2 Clogged Stream Lands 3
P3 Water Problems 2
P1 Subsidence 2
Gravel Pit 2
Strip Mine 2
P3 Industrial/Residential Waste 2
Disturbed Surface 2
P2 Industrial/Residential Waste 1
P1 Clogged Stream Lands 1
P1 Clogged Streams 1
Mine Shaft 1
P2 Vertical Openings 1
Other counties in IowaAll counties →
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 as a working mine, 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. The county is assigned from each feature's coordinates against the Census 2023 county boundaries. The full method is on the national page.

Sources
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. Abandoned Hardrock Mine Reclamation (AHMR) Program, US Department of the Interior
    The program the USGS inventory is compiled for. Its appropriations and the 674,000 field-confirmed feature count on this page were provided by the program manager, Office of Environmental Policy and Compliance, and are cited with permission (2026-09-08).
  8. IMCC-NAAMLP Hardrock AML Report
    Page 48 carries the two figures this page leans on: USGS estimates 633,181 of the 725,690 mine features it recorded from historic topographic maps, 87 percent, are hardrock; and state and federal agencies have submitted more than 724,000 AML features to the national database being built, already more than the historic maps hold. Year-by-year AHMR funding is on page 35.