How many abandoned mines are in Oregon?

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Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Oregon

Oregon has 14,724 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1914–2004, including 2,050 mine openings (shafts, adits and air shafts), across 36 counties. OSMRE's abandoned mine land inventory lists 29 problems in the state, 14 of them not yet reclaimed. MSHA's register carries 1,297 Oregon mines with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps of Oregon, 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): 14,724
Mine openings: 2,050
OSMRE problems unreclaimed: 14
MSHA mines marked abandoned: 1,297

36 counties with mapped features819 features carry a name3,660 prospect pitsmaps published 1914–2004 29 OSMRE problems, 15 reclaimed21 problem areas (PADs), 14 with work left 0 MSHA mines abandoned and sealed The state program's own inventory estimate: 8,000 features (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
Baker County	1,601	561	142	0	0	90
Grant County	1,188	531	168	0	0	32
Josephine County	1,187	251	183	0	0	69
Malheur County	1,060	71	14	0	0	31
Jackson County	898	262	45	0	0	86
Douglas County	876	66	33	0	0	82
Linn County	836	31	4	0	0	46
Harney County	767	20	5	0	0	9
Lane County	716	75	23	0	0	58
Lake County	606	12	7	0	0	33
Crook County	499	48	9	0	0	37
Clackamas County	421	4	79	1	1	87
Klamath County	353	0	11	0	0	43
Deschutes County	293	1	3	0	0	66
Curry County	275	16	12	0	0	49
Jefferson County	262	16	7	0	0	17
Union County	238	5	3	0	0	14
Polk County	221	0	0	0	0	18
Coos County	192	6	17	27	12	56
Marion County	191	19	9	0	0	44
Tillamook County	186	0	1	0	0	45
Wasco County	185	0	10	0	0	25
Wallowa County	184	48	13	0	0	5
Umatilla County	181	1	0	0	0	30
Clatsop County	179	0	1	0	0	30
Wheeler County	154	4	2	0	0	3
Benton County	136	0	0	0	0	14
Lincoln County	131	0	2	0	0	24
Yamhill County	118	0	1	0	0	25
Columbia County	109	1	2	0	0	40
Morrow County	108	0	0	0	0	2
Washington County	97	0	2	1	1	40
Multnomah County	85	0	6	0	0	32
Sherman County	79	1	0	0	0	2
Gilliam County	64	0	0	0	0	2
Hood River County	48	0	5	0	0	11

What the features are

Mine openings

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

2,073 14.1%
Prospect pits and trenches

shallow exploration diggings that never became a mine

3,660 24.8%
Mines and surface workings

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

846 5.7%
Quarries, gravel and borrow pits

construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction

7,870 53.3%
Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob

what mining left above ground

298 2.0%
Mills, tipples and facilities

processing plants and hazardous structures

3 0.0%
Other reclamation problems

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

3 0.0%

By source vocabularythe publishers' own terms

Feature type	Class	Source	Features
Prospect Pit	Prospect pits and trenches	USGS topo symbol (point)	3,659
Quarry	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	2,239
Borrow Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	1,949
Adit	Mine openings	USGS topo symbol (point)	1,735
Gravel Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	1,662
Gravel Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (area)	509
Quarry	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (area)	436
Open Pit Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (point)	323
Mine Shaft	Mine openings	USGS topo symbol (point)	315
Borrow Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (area)	296
Open Pit Mine or Quarry	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (point)	271
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	248
Cinder Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	240
Tailings - Undifferentiated	Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob	USGS topo symbol (area)	150
Cinder Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (area)	115
Open Pit Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (area)	104
Tailings - Dredge	Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob	USGS topo symbol (area)	67
Mine Dump	Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob	USGS topo symbol (area)	53
Disturbed Surface	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (area)	46
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (area)	33
Quarry - Rock	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	33
Placer Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (point)	32
Sand Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	30
Disturbed Surface - Pit	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (area)	27
Sand Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (area)	27
Placer Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (area)	25
Tailings - Placer	Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob	USGS topo symbol (area)	15
Quarry - Rock	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (area)	14
Sand and Gravel Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (area)	12
Quarry - Pumice	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	11
P2 Portals	Mine openings	OSMRE e-AMLIS problem	11
Clay Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	9
Diggings	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (point)	7
Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (point)	6
P2 Vertical Openings	Mine openings	OSMRE e-AMLIS problem	6
Sand and Gravel Pit	Quarries, gravel and borrow pits	USGS topo symbol (point)	6
Tailings - Pond	Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob	USGS topo symbol (area)	6
P1 Portals	Mine openings	OSMRE e-AMLIS problem	4
Coal Mine	Mines and surface workings	USGS topo symbol (point)	3
P1 Vertical Openings	Mine openings	OSMRE e-AMLIS problem	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, 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.