Pennsylvania, abandoned mine maps
The two federal files record 1,803 underground mine openings in Pennsylvania, shafts, adits and tunnels drawn on the historical topographic sheets, alongside 2,309 old mine sites. This page shows where they are, who holds the maps, and what to do if the ground moves.
Information only, no guarantee: read the limits at the foot of this page before you act on anything here.
This page
Every office on this page was opened and checked on Oct. 22, 2026.
The 1,803 underground mine openings in Pennsylvania are spread across 67 counties, and the heaviest of them is Clearfield County with 189. An opening on a historical sheet is a shaft, an adit or a tunnel that was drawn where the surveyor found it, so it marks a way into workings that run on underground, away from the point.
Everything here can be wrong. This is information, not a guarantee: the two federal files can be wrong, incomplete or out of date, the boundaries and the geocoder can be wrong, a point is a location and not a property line, and nothing on this page says that a mine is or is not under any particular property. Do not buy, sell, move, or make any decision about a home or about your safety on this alone. Ask the state mine map office named here for the maps, and have a qualified engineer look at the ground.
Start here
Every card goes to the office that holds the record. Use the category buttons to narrow the list.
State records
Scanned historic underground coal mine maps viewed and downloaded at a chosen site location, each linked to its PHUMMIS record (the PA Historic Underground Mine Map Inventory System).
Open official site Pennsylvania Mine Map Atlas (DEP, hosted by Penn State)State records
The page that says where to report an open subsidence hole, shaft or portal: the BAMR district office in Ebensburg (814-472-1800, bituminous region) or Wilkes-Barre (570-826-2371, anthracite region), after hours 800-541-2050.
Open official site DEP Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation, Report an AML EmergencyState records
Links the Active Underground Bituminous Coal Mining application, the DEP GIS open data layers (digitized mined out areas, longwall panels, permit boundaries), PASDA downloads, the Mine Map Atlas and PHUMMIS.
Open official site DEP Bureau of Mining Programs, underground mining maps and data (Act 54)State records
State run insurance for damage from the collapse of abandoned underground coal and clay mines (residential coverage of $150,000 for $41.25 a year as the page states), with apply, renew and Check for Risk links.
Open official site DEP Mine Subsidence Insurance (MSI)Federal
The federal archive of maps of closed and abandoned mines, searchable by state, county, company and mine name; the images are sent on request through the map request form.
Open official site OSMRE National Mine Map RepositoryFederal
The federal inventory of abandoned mine land problems and the reclamation work funded against them, state by state and county by county.
Open official site OSMRE e-AMLISFederal
The national file of adits, shafts, pits and quarries digitised from the historical topographic sheets, each with the sheet name and the survey year.
Open official site USGS USMIN topographic mine featuresFederal
The USGS record of mines, prospects and occurrences with the commodity, the development status and the position of each site.
Open official site USGS Mineral Resources Data SystemThe map
To look at one address, one ZIP code or one town instead of the whole state, open the mine map hub search and enter it there: it takes a street address, a ZIP code or your browser location and lists what sits within the radius you choose.
Who keeps what
| What you need | Office or archive | What it can tell you |
|---|---|---|
| Maps of the workings themselves | Pennsylvania Mine Map Atlas (DEP, hosted by Penn State) | The mine name, the seam, the year the map was certified and whether your area is inside a mapped working |
| An open hole, a shaft or a subsidence emergency | DEP Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation, Report an AML Emergency | Report it to this office; call 911 first if anyone is in danger |
| The geology, the seams and the published mapping | DEP Bureau of Mining Programs, underground mining maps and data (Act 54) | Which seams were worked in your county and what the state has digitised |
| Cover for damage from mine subsidence | DEP Mine Subsidence Insurance (MSI) | Whether your county is covered, what it costs and what a standard homeowner policy excludes |
| A map of a closed mine the state does not hold | OSMRE National Mine Map Repository | The federal archive of more than 275,000 mine maps, searched by state, county, company and mine name |
| Whether a reclamation project is on record near you | OSMRE e-AMLIS | The federal inventory of abandoned mine land problems and the work funded on them |
County by county
67 counties have a record in one of the two federal files. Ranked by underground openings first, because an opening is a way into workings that run on underground.
Town by town
30 towns with the most records inside its own boundary, of 283 towns that hold one.
| Town | Underground openings | Mapped features | Old mine sites |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | 9 | 24 | 0 |
| Moosic | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| Coaldale | 7 | 11 | 0 |
| Old Forge | 7 | 7 | 0 |
| Centerville | 5 | 10 | 0 |
| Madison | 5 | 5 | 0 |
| Shippingport | 4 | 8 | 0 |
| Scranton | 4 | 4 | 1 |
| Wilkes-Barre | 4 | 5 | 0 |
| Taylor | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| Ellsworth | 3 | 6 | 0 |
| Muse | 3 | 5 | 0 |
| Elmora | 3 | 4 | 0 |
| Nesquehoning | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| Vintondale | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| Tamaqua | 2 | 10 | 0 |
| Woodland | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| Northern Cambria | 2 | 5 | 0 |
| Bethel Park | 2 | 4 | 0 |
| Bunola | 2 | 4 | 0 |
| Van Voorhis | 2 | 4 | 0 |
| Wyano | 2 | 4 | 0 |
| Bentleyville | 2 | 3 | 0 |
| Freeport | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| Lansford | 2 | 3 | 0 |
| Mather | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| Mineral Springs | 2 | 3 | 0 |
| Russellton | 2 | 3 | 0 |
| Trevorton | 2 | 3 | 0 |
| Aaronsburg | 2 | 2 | 0 |
The real document
Pennsylvania Mine Map Atlas (DEP, hosted by Penn State) is the state route in Pennsylvania. Scanned historic underground coal mine maps viewed and downloaded at a chosen site location, each linked to its PHUMMIS record (the PA Historic Underground Mine Map Inventory System).
OSMRE National Mine Map Repository is the federal archive. It holds maps of more than 275,000 closed and abandoned mines, the images are not downloadable, and they are sent on request: search the repository by state, county, company or mine name, then ask for the sheet by its number through the map request form or at nmmr@osmre.gov.
A mine map is the only document that shows the rooms, the pillars and the depth of cover under a given piece of ground. A point in either federal file is a location, not a property line, and it says nothing about what lies under any particular house.
Emergency
If the ground has opened, if a hole is swallowing water or soil, if a wall or a floor has moved suddenly, or if anyone could fall in, call 911 first. A subsidence hole can keep opening, and the edge of it is not safe to stand on.
When nobody is in immediate danger, DEP Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation, Report an AML Emergency is the office to call in Pennsylvania. The page that says where to report an open subsidence hole, shaft or portal: the BAMR district office in Ebensburg (814-472-1800, bituminous region) or Wilkes-Barre (570-826-2371, anthracite region), after hours 800-541-2050.
Then tell the people who need the record of it: your insurer, your county emergency management office, and, if the hole is in a road or a right of way, the authority that maintains it. Photograph it with something in the frame for scale, write down the date and the time, and keep measuring it, because how fast it grows is what an engineer will ask about first.
Signs worth reporting before anything opens: doors and windows that stop closing, new cracks that run at an angle across a wall, a floor or a drive that dips, a sudden wet patch or a dry well, and a smell of sulphur or a warm patch of ground where snow melts first.
Cover
Pennsylvania runs one of its own. DEP Mine Subsidence Insurance (MSI) is the programme. State run insurance for damage from the collapse of abandoned underground coal and clay mines (residential coverage of $150,000 for $41.25 a year as the page states), with apply, renew and Check for Risk links.
A standard homeowner policy excludes earth movement, and mine subsidence is earth movement, so cover for it is bought separately. Ask for the rate on your own address and ask what the policy pays for: the structure, the contents, the land, or only some of them.
The data
The topographic file holds 6,737 mapped mine features inside Pennsylvania, 1,803 of them underground openings. The sheets they were drawn on were surveyed between 1943 and 2000. The commonest kinds are gravel/borrow pit, quarry and gravel pit.
The mineral file holds 2,309 worked or prospected sites in Pennsylvania, 2,282 of them named, with 2,110 sites recorded as a past producer. The commodities most often named are stone, limestone and sand and gravel.
How the counting was done: every point in both files was placed inside the Census TIGER 2024 county and place boundaries by its own coordinates, not by the county name written in the file, because that name is blank or wrong often enough to matter. A point that falls outside every boundary is counted in no county and no town.
What the counts are not: a count of mines under houses. A single opening can lead to workings that run for miles, and a working with no opening on a sheet is in no count at all. Only a mine map shows the rooms, and only the offices named above hold the maps.
Everything here can be wrong. This is information, not a guarantee: the two federal files can be wrong, incomplete or out of date, the boundaries and the geocoder can be wrong, a point is a location and not a property line, and nothing on this page says that a mine is or is not under any particular property. Do not buy, sell, move, or make any decision about a home or about your safety on this alone. Ask the state mine map office named here for the maps, and have a qualified engineer look at the ground.
Straight answers
Open only the answer you need.
Yes. The state publishes an address level check at https://gis.dep.pa.gov/msiRisk/ where you enter the street address and it says whether the site falls inside a mapped mining area. That is the closest thing to an answer for one property, and it is still not a mine map: ask the state office for the map itself.
Call 911 first if anyone could be hurt. After that DEP Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation, Report an AML Emergency is the office to tell.
Two federal files: the USGS Mineral Resources Data System and the USGS USMIN file of mine features digitised from the historical topographic sheets. Every point was placed inside the Census 2024 county and place boundaries by its own coordinates. For Pennsylvania that is 6,737 mapped mine features and 2,309 old mine sites.
Not a standard policy, which excludes earth movement. Pennsylvania runs the DEP Mine Subsidence Insurance (MSI) for exactly this, and it is bought separately.
It means a surveyor drew a shaft, an adit or a tunnel mouth at that spot when the sheet was made. It is a way in. The workings it leads to can run a long way from it, and the map of those workings is a separate document held by the offices named on this page.
By underground openings first: Clearfield with 189 openings and 267 mapped features; Washington with 185 openings and 427 mapped features; Schuylkill with 167 openings and 232 mapped features. Each county page lists the named workings inside it and carries its own map.
No. This is a public records guide. The offices it names and links are the official sources, and everything on this page can be wrong: check it with them before you act on it.
All states
Every state page carries that state's own offices, its own counties and its own numbers.