If I Were A Mountain Climber Or A Heli Skiier I Would Be Wearing A Device That......

[global1]

would put out signals so if covered by an avalanche I could be found. Thinking about this mine disaster and the problem that they have not knowing where these six miners lost for 12 days are - are similar devices available for miners? If not - it seems to me that something can be invented that would serve the same purpose - though underground. After all this is the 21st Century and we have all kinds of technology available to us. Whether it be something that is worn by every miner that emits signals on a certain frequency - or something that can be planted behind the miners every 100 yards - so that in case of a cave-in - at least you know one of the last spots they were. Or how about some sort of rotary device that can be set to continually hit the side of the cavern and send out knocks/raps/hits where the sound waves can be picked up by listening devices - similar to what they thought they heard a day or two ago.

What about GPS transmitters? Cell phones?

It just seems to me that there should be some sort of safety device that is powerful enough to work for these guys - given the technology we have at our disposal.

And if such a device was available - every miner would be required to wear it - or every mine owner would be required to provide it to its employees.

[Wildewolfe]

1. I doubt GPS would work...

... since that requires receiving weak signals from 2 or 3 of the GPS satallites. But you would think they could do something that could help find them.

[Flarney]

2. What makes me sick as that in the 21st century we also shouldn't still be using coal...

...you're right, though, it's absolutely shocking that they don't all carry some sort of homing signal device at the very least.

[XOKCowboy]

3. I believe that was part of the mine safety reforms...

enacted after Sago. From what I've read the recess appointed Bush toadie in charge of the MHSA has been slow implementing the changes.

[karlrschneider]

4. Unfortunately we don't know of any kind of radio (electromagnetic) signals that will

penetrate more than a few feet of rock. *Banging the side of the tunnel might work if very sensitive geophones were used above the dig, but it might also cause instability and would be difficult to precisely triangulate.

Maybe a neutrino generator would work, those little buggers go clear through whole planets but they're awfully hard to detect. Kinda like the guy who invented the universal solvent...but couldn't find anything to keep it in.

[TheWraith]

5. Very little electromagnetic energy will go through rock and soil.

That's why hills and mountains are an effective block for cell phone signals or GPS data. For this to work, you'd either have to have it emitting a very, very low frequency, something like the ELF that the Navy uses to communicate with its submarines when they've gone deep. Unfortunately, that takes a lot of power. Another approach would be to have ordinary copper wires running along the tunnel floor that could be tapped into by a device the miner was wearing, but this is subject to the wires not being severed in any collapse.

[northzax]

6. well don't they basically know where they are?

fairly close to it? I would think perhaps the best way is to set up electronic checkpoints. have every miner wear an electronic badge that is read by a machine every so many meters, all they would have to do is walk by, maybe 150 meters or so at a pace, and the system could then know, fairly easily, where all employees are at any given time.