How many abandoned mines are in Idaho?

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Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Idaho

Idaho has 15,861 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1920–2005, including 4,526 mine openings (shafts, adits and air shafts), across 44 counties. OSMRE's abandoned mine land inventory lists 4 problems in the state, 3 of them not yet reclaimed. MSHA's register carries 1,109 Idaho mines with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps of Idaho, 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): 15,861
Mine openings: 4,526
OSMRE problems unreclaimed: 3
MSHA mines marked abandoned: 1,109

44 counties with mapped features808 features carry a name7,106 prospect pitsmaps published 1920–2005 4 OSMRE problems, 1 reclaimed2 problem areas (PADs), 2 with work left 1 MSHA mines abandoned and sealed The state program's own inventory estimate: hundreds to several thousands (IMCC-NAAMLP Hardrock AML Report 2025, Table 5, page 46).

By countyranked by mapped USGS features

County	USGS features	Openings	Named	OSMRE problems	Unreclaimed	MSHA abandoned
Shoshone County	2,127	1,063	95	0	0	92
Lemhi County	1,932	501	84	0	0	32
Blaine County	1,606	647	41	0	0	30
Owyhee County	1,364	363	64	0	0	21
Custer County	1,282	502	45	0	0	48
Idaho County	888	335	155	0	0	159
Butte County	661	141	18	0	0	3
Bonner County	412	137	44	0	0	37
Valley County	389	103	48	0	0	25
Boise County	353	110	43	0	0	32
Elmore County	345	49	8	0	0	34
Adams County	298	132	11	0	0	9
Cassia County	274	21	8	0	0	27
Gem County	272	29	6	0	0	19
Bannock County	255	10	5	0	0	19
Clark County	244	39	1	0	0	9
Kootenai County	242	43	18	0	0	71
Caribou County	242	6	10	0	0	30
Washington County	196	37	6	0	0	10
Camas County	185	79	16	0	0	5
Bear Lake County	162	20	2	3	2	6
Bingham County	154	0	5	0	0	14
Oneida County	149	1	0	0	0	5
Boundary County	145	46	17	0	0	11
Twin Falls County	139	0	0	0	0	43
Latah County	137	15	16	0	0	20
Ada County	136	8	5	0	0	83
Bonneville County	118	5	2	0	0	32
Teton County	115	38	13	1	1	7
Jerome County	115	0	0	0	0	4
Lincoln County	114	2	1	0	0	5
Benewah County	105	2	1	0	0	21
Clearwater County	89	13	14	0	0	23
Power County	86	9	0	0	0	9
Canyon County	77	0	0	0	0	32
Gooding County	77	3	2	0	0	6
Nez Perce County	74	5	1	0	0	21
Fremont County	73	0	1	0	0	14
Franklin County	73	3	1	0	0	6
Jefferson County	61	0	0	0	0	6
Lewis County	47	8	0	0	0	4
Payette County	27	0	0	0	0	8
Minidoka County	15	0	0	0	0	13
Madison County	6	1	1	0	0	4

What the features are

Mine openings

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

4,528 28.5%
Prospect pits and trenches

shallow exploration diggings that never became a mine

7,106 44.8%
Mines and surface workings

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

442 2.8%
Quarries, gravel and borrow pits

construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction

3,479 21.9%
Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob

what mining left above ground

308 1.9%
Other reclamation problems

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

2 0.0%

By source vocabularythe publishers' own terms

Feature type	Class	Source	Features
Prospect Pit	Prospect pits and trenches	USGS topo symbol (point)	7,106
Adit	Mine openings	USGS topo symbol (point)	4,014
Gravel Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	1,474
Borrow Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	881
Mine Shaft	Mine openings	USGS topo symbol (point)	509
Gravel Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (area)	487
Open Pit Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (point)	263
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	176
Quarry	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	161
Tailings - Undifferentiated	Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob	USGS topo symbol (area)	160
Borrow Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (area)	156
Open Pit Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (area)	62
Open Pit Mine or Quarry	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (point)	53
Tailings - Dredge	Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob	USGS topo symbol (area)	46
Mine Dump	Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob	USGS topo symbol (area)	45
Tailings - Pond	Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob	USGS topo symbol (area)	39
Sand Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	37
Cinder Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	33
Quarry	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (area)	24
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (area)	17
Disturbed Surface - Pit	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (area)	16
Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (point)	15
Disturbed Surface	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (area)	13
Clay Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	12
Settling Pond	Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob	USGS topo symbol (area)	11
Cinder Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (area)	8
Strip Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (area)	7
Clay Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (area)	6
Sand Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (area)	5
Placer Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (area)	5
Placer Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (point)	5
Tailings - Placer	Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob	USGS topo symbol (area)	3
Air Shaft	Mine openings	USGS topo symbol (point)	3
Tailings - Mill	Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob	USGS topo symbol (area)	2
Quarry - Rock	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	2
Settling Pond	Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob	USGS topo symbol (point)	2
P2 Portals	Mine openings	OSMRE e-AMLIS problem	1
Strip Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (point)	1
Diggings	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (area)	1
Diggings	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (point)	1

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, and several problems make one problem area (PAD), which is the unit a state program counts and reports; the public extract can also hold more problem areas than a state's live inventory, because areas since merged or ruled ineligible stay in the published file, so a state figure that differs from this one is not a contradiction. An MSHA mine is a registered operation whose operator reported abandonment, a record that starts in the 1970s; that is a regulatory status rather than a physical one, and it also holds operations merely between jobs, portable crushers above all, which is why over a thousand mines carrying it have been inspected in the last two years. 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.
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).
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.