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The Cargill salt mine: an other world under Lake Erie
Rock the Lake (Cleveland Lakefront Collaborative) ^ | Dec 1, 2017 | Laura Johnston

Posted on 12/26/2020 7:28:23 AM PST by texas booster

Down, down, down. In three minutes, the skip drops nearly 1,700 feet below Cleveland. Then the giant metal door swings open, and you’re deposited in an other-world, with walls, ceiling and floor made of salt.

Dirty brown salt at the Cargill mine’s entrance, where the rock has absorbed diesel fumes and dust for more than 60 years. Pristine white, with glimmering flecks, at the mine’s far reaches, 3 miles north, under Lake Erie.

“I look out at the water, and it’s like, man, we’re under that!” said Cargill employee Cachet Hilton, 45.

Every day, the 5-mile wide mine gets a little bigger, room by room, as crews stick explosives in the walls and blast the salt loose.

Crews jump in a truck to drive out to the far reaches of the mine each day, 20 minutes of bumping and jolting through a PacMan grid of pitch-black tunnels that also serve as a ventilation system.

The air feels dusty, a little gritty on your skin. You can taste the salt on your lips. And you kick it as you walk, like corn snow. Light is nonexistent, aside from the lamp on your hardhat and the headlights on vehicles.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; US: Ohio
KEYWORDS: cargill; catastrophism; cleveland; greatlakes; lakeerie; mine; mining; ohio; salt; saltmine
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To: KingLudd

A large ice based type of snow. The snow of California/ western Nevada is usually corn snow.

In my mind I see salt the size of corn kernel and smaller chipped corn. Underground coal mines have scattered debris upon the floor.


81 posted on 12/26/2020 11:25:39 AM PST by Oil Object Insp
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To: ADemocratNoMore; Akron Al; arbee4bush; agrace; ATOMIC_PUNK; Badeye; big bad easter bunny; ...

OHIO PING!
Please let me know if you want on or off the Ohio Ping list.

The Cargill salt mine: an other world under Lake Erie
Rock the Lake (Cleveland Lakefront Collaborative) ^ | Dec 1, 2017 | Laura Johnston
Posted on 12/26/2020, 10:28:23 AM by texas booster


82 posted on 12/26/2020 11:33:51 AM PST by Lowell1775
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To: piasa

The caps of salt domes can be rich in sulfur and potassium-based salts. That is what was being mined and shipped to the powder mills, not sodium chloride.


83 posted on 12/26/2020 12:01:49 PM PST by crusty old prospector
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To: 75thOVI; Abathar; agrace; aimhigh; Alice in Wonderland; AnalogReigns; AndrewC; aragorn; ...

84 posted on 12/26/2020 5:55:10 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: texas booster

An old water well driller known to one of my relatives mentioend that any well deeper than 50’ west of the hamlet of Nunica will be salt water. It’s been down there a long, long time. Deeper still is the Marshall Sandstone, with plenty of water, but it’s pretty hard water.


85 posted on 12/26/2020 5:57:31 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: texas booster
I demand that you transport me there immediately!!


86 posted on 12/26/2020 6:07:00 PM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Nobody in New Mexico has ever heard of Ziebart. You can be killed by a De Soto with the original paint.


87 posted on 12/26/2020 6:07:03 PM PST by Tijeras_Slim
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To: texas booster

Sounds similar to the lime mines below the Ohio river south of Cincinnati.

There they have to cut the truck beds in half before lowering them down to the mine along with the rest of the truck in parts, to be reassembled below. Dead heavy equipment is never brought to the surface.

The “rooms” are so big you could play a softball game there - 900+ feet below the surface.

Quite an experience.


88 posted on 12/26/2020 8:55:35 PM PST by Mister Da (The mark of a wise man is not what he knows, but what he knows he doesn't know!)
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To: M Kehoe

Much cheaper and easier to handle, can be mixed right there on the job site as well which makes it much safer for transport.


89 posted on 12/27/2020 5:38:54 AM PST by Abathar (Proudly posting without reading the article carefully since 2004)
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To: Mister Da

I used to work in a Lime Mine, by the end of the day my clothes could stand up by themselves after I took them off and It took an hour to get all the dust off me. Worst job ever!


90 posted on 12/27/2020 7:34:28 AM PST by ABN 505 (Right is right if nobody is right, and wrong is wrong if everybody is wrong. ~Archbishop Fulton John)
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To: Abathar

Good points.

5.56mm


91 posted on 12/27/2020 11:11:44 AM PST by M Kehoe (DRAIN THE SWAMP! Finish THE WALL!)
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To: texas booster

also perhaps of interest:

https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1480756/posts

https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1917348/posts


92 posted on 12/27/2020 6:44:05 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: P.O.E.
Wieliczka salt mine near Krakow, Poland

One of the most awesome places I've ever been to.

93 posted on 12/27/2020 6:47:10 PM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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