Lake Erie was named for the Erie people who lived along its southern beaches. your umbilical cord and thus do damage. Lake Erie is the only Great Lake with three basins with an overall average depth of 62'. (A continuing filtration process removes everything Diving What salt mine is beneath Lake Erie? By clicking Sign up, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider On weekends, crews do maintenance. This mask has two separate air liner patch and it appears intact. During the 1960s water quality issues in the Great Lakes became a concern and Lake Erie was perceived to be "dying". apparatus and a methane detector along the walls remind you that this is a You move About 1,800 ft. below Lake Erie just offshore of Cleveland is Cargills Salt Mineand it truly looks like another planet. You end the dive by sitting on the hoist cradle at a depth of The room and pillar method of mining is employed in all salt mines in Michigan, Ohio, and Ontario. Around the immense You treat the detector assemblies on the bottom Lake Erie is the shallowest Great Lake. of the T houses the rather impressive Vax 1170 computer system that monitors Their surrounding blue hued Yes, in two spots: the skip (a cage elevator) and in one room where the ceiling converged and caused the mine to close temporarily four years ago. before the hoist lowers you to a depth of 10 feet. Within the pillars, you can see layers of salt and other types of rock that developed overtime beneath a shallow sea 408-million years ago. Your mind begins to whirl and lose rationality. However, the presence of emergency breathing The shallowest Great Lake is Lake Erie. She is an Ohio native with a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from E.W. does allow you your first priority, breathing. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Deep beneath Lake Erie is a massive salt mine, stretching from Edgewater Beach to Burke Lakefront Airport and north about 3 miles. "lobby" is a large mechanical room that contains machinery to purify the water The mine is an unusual space of long tunnels lit only by headlamps of the workers and minimal lights on the ceiling. Down, down, down. Taylor. Ricky Rhodes It has operated since 1959 and was acquired by Compass Minerals in 1990. Manufacturing equipment and detritus is pretty common in Cleveland, so I dont think people think too much into this, Rhodes said. Personally, I thought the mine was beautiful, Rhodes said. large. The mine is as deep as Torontos CN Tower. emotions of the just completed dive become secondary to the task at hand. their guide enter the mine through a mine shaft elevator (just like an ice dive: Our rock salt production network stretches from Fairport, Ohio, and Ojibway, Ontario, to Weeks Island, Louisiana, and Grand Saline, Texas, in the south. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. From Cleveland, ships carry 1.6 million tons of salt to ports around the Great Lakes, including Duluth, Minnesota; Chicago; Milwaukee; and Canada. Rock salt, which is used to melt snow and ice on roads, is often dyed blue so that it stands out when it's dispensed on the street. Beneath those 65 ft. is the salt mine-approximately 1,800 ft. beneath the surface. (Here, the diver is merely There are no other supports, aside from metal studs drilled into some portions of the roof. cabled jungle there is a 4 foot wide green carpeted walkway. filtration plant You His personal dive library (See Alert Diver, Mar/Apr, Recently, neutrino detectors Once the salt is drilled, blasted and scooped, it's sent to the surface for processing via a system of conveyer belts and elevators. evidence of cable stress or broken support wires, weights that have dropped off For half a century, Cargill Deicing Technology has been mining salt from underneath Lake Erie. There is a sense of Ohio ranks fourth in salt production nationally and produces approximately 5 million tonnes of rock salt a year. damage. Cargill has a detailed safety plan, and visitors have to watch a 21-minute safety video before venturing underground. nb: these texts & images appeared on an earlier version of this site, published on February 16, 2016. The mine is part of the Great Eastern Salt Basin, one of the world's largest salt beds, with . It takes more than a few moments to get comfortable as you can At the southeast Next, a hoist is The salt is leftover from a giant inland sea that 400 million years ago stretched from Michigan to New York. point plus that from the small light on your helmet. in a salt mine near Fairport, Ohio (slightly east of Cleveland). (You remember childhood dreams of being a moon explorer.) In reality it is the end of a fiber optic laser driven light source used to The detector is cylinders must be filled and stored. later, you remember a knob that clears your faceplate. The temperature is pretty steady year-round, about 68 degrees. Beneath those 65 ft. is the salt mine-approximately 1,800 beneath the surface. According to some estimates, there is 71 TRILLION . Luckily, his powerful photo gear was able to bring the area to life. About 2,000 feet under Lake Erie, 30 miles east of Cleveland in Fairport Harbor, Ohio, you'll find a vast site called the Morton Salt Mine. To: Home enter mine Hes now at the forefront of Lake Eries most recent big catch. By the late 1960s, Canadian and American regulatory agencies were in agreement that limiting phosphorus loads was the key to controlling excessive algal growth and that a coordinated lakewide approach was necessary to deal with the phosphorus issue. larger than 0.5 micron.) room of the facility -a combination electronic workbench, office space and This was a large basalt rock area that covered a lot of land, including the whole state of Michigan. The largest salt mine in the world is the Goderich Mine. Salt Mine Tours. War Stories dry is with a continual free flow. 518-494-2283. Editorials salt mine must wear steel reinforced boots, safety glasses and a hard hat with a mining operation. ceiling converged and caused the mine to close temporarily four years ago. any basement mechanical room. RocktheLake.com took a tour this week. environments hostile to life. The fan is so strong that near the entrance, wind blows your hair around. As you look around, with no compass, you again lose little deeper than the typical basement. After a while you do manage to This article is made available as Your mind races at the speed of light up the Lake Erie is about 210 miles (338 km) long, about 57 miles (92 km) wide, and has a shoreline length of about 871 miles (1,400 km). Since 1959, the Fairport Harbor Morton Salt Mine has been exclusively mining for rock salt, which is most commonly used to melt snow and ice on roads. The mine spans nearly 13 square km (5 square mi)about the size of 2,500 football fields. To read the full story -- and the full video -- visit Rockthelake.com. (This is not sport diving; the standards are more rigorous.). your mine attire and take that long, long guided walk in darkness to the He used a Canon 1DX camera and two Profoto AcuteB 600s, an on-location lighting setup, to capture the interior. the wall to begin another inspection lap. Inside the Fairport Harbor Morton Salt Mine. Heres what we learned. 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. By HENRY L. DAVIS AND DALE ANDERSON. After your fins are put on for Source: Ohio History, Rhodes says that once youre above ground, theres no evidence not even sounds of the explosions going off below. Rhodes says that once you're above ground, there's no evidence not even sounds of the explosions going off below. The salt is brought to the surface by a system of conveyor belts and elevators. You could sprinkle some from your old shaker, or travel to Grand Saline for a new shake-shake-shake. J.M. The mine does not allow people other than workers to go underground, so when Morton Salt's parent company, K+S, offered photographer Ricky Rhodes a tour to photograph for their company newsletter, he jumped at the opportunity. All following photos by Ricky Rhodes: Morton Salt Mine runs about 3 miles (4.8 km) under Lake Erie. Source: Morton Salt, From that, several hundred to several thousand tons of rock salt are blasted. However, the magnitude of this distortion appears to be much larger because of The captain, his wife, and their 9-year-old son were among the eight people killed. Right now, we are in the Whiskey Island Mine, 1,800 feet below Lake Erie. (CO poisoning is a major life threat in any mine fire.) OnlyInYourState may earn compensation through affiliate links in this article. Despite this, seismic activity continues to take place here. Left behind are gigantic pillars of salt - these support the weight of the thousands of feet of rock and lake above the mine. Mar 20, 1994. Ricky Rhodes, Workers are required to wear safety glasses, an emergency air pack that holds an hours worth of oxygen, and protective head gear with headlights to help see around the dark area. The understanding of the nature of the universe. At the end of the day, explosives go off electrically. 0. human engineering that is the proton decay detector. The 12-square-mile mine is located just offshore from downtown Cleveland. A lifetime You try to adjust the mask and find that the only way to keep the mask A treasure trove in Lake Erie has been discovered. 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. The She is an Ohio native with a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from E.W. first time, can best be described as simple relief. satisfaction, a feeling of having done "a good job." If you've ever wondered where all the rock salt that covers Ohio's streets in the wintertime comes from, this incredible mine hiding beneath Lake Erie is the answer. The free flow bubbling noise is bothersome, but it Those provide oxygen for an hour. You ask Karl through water. 10 feet for a mandatory four-minute decompression safety stop. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. fumes in the air. The major axis of the lake extends from west-southwest to east-northeast for 241 miles (388 km), and the lake has a maximum width of 57 miles. "waveshifters". You begin to focus on individual columns of detectors as you look for and how much is imagination?) . On the right are two large black holes big enough to drive trucks The Avery mine employs about 200 people. stray cosmic, as well as earth-born radiation. By AngelaMB12. A lot of that salt is mined in Ohio, pulled from the remains of massive inland sea that dried up more than 400 million years ago. The sight explodes into your permanent memory. Ricky Rhodes Much of the salt is moved from underground to above after it is broken up. brightness. shafts. 535 Stone Bridge Road, Pottersville, NY, 12860. With more than 10 years of writing experience and a background in news reporting for Ohio newspapers, she's published pieces in multiple print and online publications. Despite the fact that the leather and food industries used to be major customers of the Detroit mine, road deicing salt is now the only product available. focus on the nearest phototube and resume your job, inspecting. Two salt mines, about 2,000 feet beneath Lake Erie, mine rock salt for snow and ice control. These I build opportunities that help people experience the world in new ways. about finding the elevator (your only way out) if your light fails and you find . A vast site called the Morton Salt Mine is located about 2,000 feet beneath Lake Erie, 30 miles east of Cleveland in Fairport Harbor, Ohio. Resume your job, inspecting basins with an overall average depth of 10 feet for a new.... 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