1. No access rights are granted
UndergroundMines.com is a research catalog. Records may describe mines on private, tribal, federal, state, county, patented, mixed-ownership, or mining-claim land. Nothing on this Site — including a mine page, map marker, coordinate, verification, visit report, photo, trip story, or membership tier — grants:
- permission to enter private property;
- permission to enter public land areas that are closed, restricted, or permit-only;
- permission to enter underground workings, shafts, adits, tunnels, or other openings;
- authority to bypass gates, seals, fences, or posted closures;
- a right-of-way, easement, or recreational access entitlement.
2. Public land is not automatic underground access
Many historic mines sit on public land managed by federal or state agencies. Public land does not mean underground entry is allowed. Surface travel and underground entry are often regulated separately. Land managers may close openings, require permits, prohibit collecting, or ban entry entirely for safety and resource protection.
Before visiting a surface site, verify ownership, land-manager rules, seasonal closures, fire restrictions, mining claims, and any required permits with the controlling agency or landowner.
3. Coordinates are research aids — not entry instructions
- Guest and free-member maps show generalized or privacy-offset approximate locations. Exact gated coordinates are withheld from page source, scripts, and API payloads for those tiers.
- Explorer Pro may unlock exact coordinates only for eligible records under Site access rules, contributor choices, and administrative restrictions.
- Some locations remain private, restricted, generalized, privacy-offset, or hidden regardless of membership.
- Approximate Area markers may be intentionally displaced and are not surveyed pins.
- Even exact coordinates, when available, do not authorize entry and may be outdated, imprecise, or unsafe to approach.
Details: Location privacy · Membership.
4. Member reports are not access or safety approvals
Verifications, visit confirmations, condition reports, feature reports, and trip stories are member observations. They may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect. They do not certify:
- legal access or landowner permission;
- structural stability or air quality;
- that an opening is open, gated, sealed, or safe;
- that a road, trail, or approach is lawful or passable.
5. Prohibited uses of Site information
You agree not to use UndergroundMines.com to:
- plan or promote trespass, vandalism, or illegal excavation;
- bypass or defeat gates, seals, fences, or closures;
- republish protected exact community coordinates as a public location dump;
- encourage untrained underground entry into abandoned workings.
The Site does not publish entry techniques, bypass methods, or route-finding into closed workings.
6. Field responsibility
If you choose to visit a surface location referenced on this Site, you alone are responsible for:
- confirming current ownership and access rules;
- obeying posted signs and land-manager directions;
- assessing weather, fire danger, road conditions, and remoteness;
- staying outside sealed, gated, or unstable openings unless you have qualified mine-safety training, gas monitoring, structural assessment, and explicit permission from the controlling landowner or agency;
- leaving historic resources undisturbed.
Read the full Mine Safety Notice.
7. Sensitive and restricted records
Administrators may mark records sensitive, withhold exact coordinates, hide approximate map areas, or restrict community exact-share settings. Those controls exist to reduce casual exposure of fragile or contested sites. Attempting to defeat access controls violates the Terms of Use.
8. No warranty; assume risk
Location data, ownership inferences, working types, and access-related notes on the Site may contain errors or omissions. You use the Site at your own risk. UndergroundMines.com and its operators are not liable for injury, death, property damage, trespass claims, or other losses arising from field use of Site information — see the Terms of Use.
9. Related pages
Mine Safety Notice · Access & safety · Location privacy · Terms of Use · Contact
Last updated: August 10, 2026