Abandoned mines in Scott County, Virginia

1. Mine openings

   shafts, adits, air shafts, portals and vertical openings: the ways into underground workings
   37 30.3%
2. Mines and surface workings

   labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
   26 21.3%
3. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits

   construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
   7 5.7%
4. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob

   what mining left above ground
   17 13.9%
5. Mills, tipples and facilities

   processing plants and hazardous structures
   5 4.1%
6. Other reclamation problems

   highwalls, subsidence, polluted or clogged water, fires, slides and gases in OSMRE's inventory
   29 23.8%
7. Other

   symbols outside the classes above
   1 0.8%

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.

1. Boozie Creek Quarry

   Surface metal/non-metal · Vulcan Constr. Materials, L.P. · MSHA ID 4400137
   Abandoned 2004-07-21
2. Bryson Cole Surface

   Surface coal · Gmax Energy Inc · MSHA ID 4407242
   Abandoned 2017-05-11
3. McMurray Mine

   Surface metal/non-metal · General Shale Brick, Inc. · MSHA ID 4407213
   Abandoned 2008-03-05
4. Mine No 3

   Underground coal · C H & S Coal Company · MSHA ID 4401246
   Abandoned and Sealed 1998-05-20
5. Natural Tunnell Plant

   Surface metal/non-metal · Rim Rock Quarries Inc · MSHA ID 4400083
   Abandoned 1986-10-28
6. No 1

   Underground coal · Faith Mining Inc · MSHA ID 4406775
   Abandoned 2009-06-24
7. No 1 Mine

   Underground coal · Faith Mining Company Inc · MSHA ID 4406099
   Abandoned and Sealed 1986-03-18
8. No 1 Strip

   Surface coal · Baker Coal Co · MSHA ID 4402374
   Abandoned 1972-06-02
9. No 1 Strip

   Surface coal · Huntington Energy Inc · MSHA ID 4404795
   Abandoned 1978-01-12
10. No 1 Strip

    Surface coal · James V Mallamas Coal Company · MSHA ID 4405704
    Abandoned 1982-12-14
11. No 1 Strip

    Surface coal · Scott County Coal Company · MSHA ID 4406179
    Abandoned 1985-07-18
12. No 2 Mine

    Underground coal · Rye Cove Coal Company · MSHA ID 4403326
    Abandoned 1979-10-03
13. No 3

    Underground coal · Rye Cove Coal Company · MSHA ID 4404102
    Abandoned 1975-11-11
14. Piedmont Quarry & Mill

    Surface metal/non-metal · Piedmont Mining Company · MSHA ID 4405170
    Abandoned 1985-03-13
15. Scott Pit

    Surface metal/non-metal · General Shale Brick, Inc. · MSHA ID 4406913
    Abandoned 2008-04-22
16. Speers Ferry Quarry

    Surface metal/non-metal · Vulcan Constr. Materials, L.P. · MSHA ID 4400091
    Abandoned 2025-06-02
17. Sunbright Strip Mine

    Surface coal · Long Branch Coal Company · MSHA ID 4404118
    Abandoned 1977-07-12

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

• Buchanan County 2,836
• Wise County 899
• Dickenson County 588
• Lee County 344
• Russell County 334
• Tazewell County 305
• Henrico County 91
• Fairfax County 87
• Smyth County 84
• Caroline County 81
• Alleghany County 80
• Augusta County 79

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.