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Abandoned mines › South Carolina
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Aiken County, South Carolina

Aiken County, South Carolina has 267 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1921–1989. MSHA's register carries 23 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Aiken 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)
267
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
23
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits18 quadrangle maps, published 1921–1989 0 MSHA mines abandoned and sealed
What the features are
  1. Mines and surface workings
    labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
    37 13.9%
  2. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    230 86.1%
MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned23 on register
  1. Aiken County Pits
    Surface metal/non-metal · Aiken County · MSHA ID 3800537
    Abandoned
  2. Aiken Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · Southern Brick Company · MSHA ID 3800585
    Abandoned
  3. AIKEN QUARRY
    Surface metal/non-metal · Martin Marietta Aggregates · MSHA ID 3800634
    Abandoned
  4. Bell Kaolin
    Surface metal/non-metal · Guignard Brick Works · MSHA ID 3800029
    Abandoned
  5. Bell Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · Beech Island Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 3800639
    Abandoned
  6. CUMINGS
    Surface metal/non-metal · Dry Branch Kaolin Company · MSHA ID 3800689
    Abandoned
  7. EDISTO MINE
    Surface metal/non-metal · J M Huber Corp · MSHA ID 3800158
    Abandoned
  8. Eureka Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · E C Culbreath & Son Inc · MSHA ID 3800381
    Abandoned
  9. G. L. Williams Landscaping, Inc.
    Surface metal/non-metal · G. L. Williams Landscaping Inc · MSHA ID 3800635
    Abandoned
  10. Graniteville Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · J M Huber Corp · MSHA ID 3800156
    Abandoned
  11. Graniteville Plant/Graniteville Plant &
    Facility metal/non-metal · J M Huber Corp · MSHA ID 3800155
    Abandoned
  12. Hillside Spring Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · G L Williams Landscaping Inc · MSHA ID 3800382
    Abandoned
  13. Kentucky-Tennessee Clay Company
    Surface metal/non-metal · Kentucky-Tennessee Clay Company · MSHA ID 3800038
    Abandoned
  14. Langley Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · J M Huber Corp · MSHA ID 3800152
    Abandoned
  15. Mc Kie Sand Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Mc Kie Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 3800247
    Abandoned
  16. MONETTA CLAY PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · James Henry Bledsoe Construction · MSHA ID 3800658
    Abandoned
  17. MUNDY BORROW PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Mundy'S Construction Inc · MSHA ID 3800688
    Abandoned
  18. RIDGE RD. PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Williams Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 3800633
    Abandoned
  19. Sam Finley-Plant No 16
    Surface metal/non-metal · Apac-Carolina Inc · MSHA ID 3800246
    Abandoned
  20. Sand & Clay Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · S & P Grading Company Inc · MSHA ID 3800380
    Abandoned
  21. TIMMERMAN SAND PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Satterfield Construction Company Inc · MSHA ID 3800657
    Abandoned
  22. UAS - North Augusta
    Facility metal/non-metal · Universal Aggregate Solutions Inc · MSHA ID 3800742
    Abandoned
  23. Williams Sand Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Williams Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 3800183
    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
Clay Pit 152
Clay Pit 38
Disturbed Surface 25
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 16
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 10
Gravel Pit 7
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 6
Sand Pit 5
Quarry 3
Quarry 2
Strip Mine 1
Gravel Pit 1
Open Pit Mine 1
Other counties in South CarolinaAll 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.