The Why Files Blog
Bang the gong for mine safety!
Posted March 26th, 2009
When mines collapse, miners die. But how to find them? Rock blocks radio waves, and wires can be destroyed. Why not rely on noise? Researchers at the University of Utah have started testing a set of iron plates and sledgehammers that miners could use to signal their location.
The complicated part happens at the surface, where sensitive microphones feed data to a computer, which then locates the miners.
“We hope to make it easier to find out if miners are alive after a collapse and, if they are alive, where they are located,” adds Gerard Schuster, a professor of geology and geophysics. “It’s not guaranteed to work every time, but looks promising from the tests we did. This is not rocket science; it’s rock science.”
Well spoken!
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