some of the deepest minds in the world extend miles below the surface of the
earth deep dark pits that stretch on into forever the world is littered with them and
we've used them to mine everything from salt to gold to obscure metals like tantalum and
gallium but every so often you'll find a mind in the world that is less about the
ore hidden inside it than about some other bizarre inhabitants
number 10 a preserved body a body and a mine is tragically not that uncommon
disasters in minds occur more frequently than anyone would like over the last century numbers
have dropped significantly but when you total them all up the final figure is in the millions
and that's just coal mines what was unusual was what miners discovered at the fallon copper mine
in sweden back in 1719. miners have pulled a body from a flooded section of mine missing his legs
but otherwise in good condition his clothing and the rest of his body looked well preserved
and suggested that he may have died only a few days prior this was unusual because that section
of the mine had not been used in years when the body was put on display publicly in the hopes of
someone identifying the man a woman came forward her name was margaret oll's daughter and
she said the man was her fiance he had gone missing 42 years earlier as the body began to
dry out it also began to petrify it became hard like wood this was because he had been preserved
in water full of vitriol also known as copper sulfate as it started to evaporate the body
began to decay weirdly enough they kept the man on display for 30 more years he was later buried in a
church during renovations he was discovered again and they permanently buried him in a cemetery
9. a data archive once mining operations are done a mine is a big empty space with not a
lot of purposes some places store toxic materials in them but others are storing more useful things
as it happens a mine is a perfect environment for preserving just about anything temperature and
humidity are ideal for storing something like a data archive gut up has archived over 21 terabytes
of data from their servers open source software they want to preserve for future generations
and they have taken all this data to a mine in the arctic in july 2020 they stored everything
in the archive code vault in norway now the data lives in a retrofitted storage container in a
decommissioned coal mine if all goes according to plan the coded material should stay safe and sound
for at least a thousand years number 8. a wild toxic dog lots of communities and neighborhoods
end up with unofficial pets a stray animal that hangs out and everyone in the community
comes to know that was the case with the dog called the auditor he lived in berkeley park an
open pit copper mine in montana the shaggy dog came and went as he pleased he would disappear for
weeks on end then return and get fed by whoever was willing to toss him snacks although miners
and employees would feed him he was skittish and avoided direct contact the auditor so named
because he showed up unexpectedly was first seen in 1986. he passed away in 2003 making
him at least 17 years old which is pretty good for a dog let alone astray more remarkable was that an
environment engineer performed some tests on the dog's hair after it passed away
the auditor had been living in the mine for so long that it managed to soak up a baffling level
of chemical compounds his hair contained arsenic at 128 times the level of a typical dog
7. the titanoboa the largest snake in the world is the green anaconda although a reticulated python
may be longer the anaconda is far heavier it can weigh over a quarter of a ton and reach 30 feet
in length the idea of an anaconda devouring a human is not far-fetched though reports of this
ever happening are extremely rare for many people it is the ultimate nightmare animal
but it could be worse in a coal mine in colombia the fossil of a snake was discovered that blows
any anaconda on earth today out of the water the snake dubbed the titanoboa reached a length of
40 feet and while that length is dramatic it's not too hard to believe compared to some current
pythons and anacondas but it's the mass of the snake that makes it remarkable titanoboa would
have weighed over 2 thousand pounds one full ton of snake that's about the weight of a black rhino
or a moose at its thickest part the back of the titanoboa would have been the same height as a
full grown man's waist but this size there was likely no prey too large for it back when it
slithered through swamps around 58 million years ago number 6. federal retirement files when it
comes time to retire most people probably expect a nice smooth transition if you work for a big
company the hr department probably has paperwork to file things to process for retirement benefits
and other relevant info to categorize you as someone not working there any longer the federal
government more or less does this as well except they don't have any of this on a computer it's all
in a mine iron mountain in boyers pennsylvania is an old limestone mine about 630 feet underground
about 600 people work here at the office of personnel management facility where every single
paper record for every retiring federal employee is stored truckloads of paperwork are delivered
every single day to the mine about 7 000 federal employees retire every single month the government
employs about 3 million people so the number isn't that drastic and despite the 600 employees at this
facility they run a massive backlog with thousands of retirements to process it's just too much work
for them the reason the whole facility is in a mine is because they have so much paperwork to
store yes it would be more efficient to do this electronically but so far that has not
been done in fact all the work they do on computer gets printed out and filed away too congress has
pointed out how inefficient this process is as far back as 1981 but fixing an efficiency seems about
as inefficient as everything else number five two billion year old water water in a cave doesn't
qualify as unusual caves are often damp places and underground lakes and rivers have existed for
eons but not all water is created equal nor is it created at the same time in one mine in canada the
water they discovered there predates multicellular life on earth the water was discovered deep in a
mine in timmins ontario the age was determined by analyzing traces of elements like helium and xenon
discovered in the water for scientists it was a bonanza as it was the oldest water ever discovered
and it sheds some light on what ancient earth might have been like technically speaking the
water isn't toxic it has trace elements in it but drinking it would be a bad idea it's also eight
times saltier than seawater number four a bike trail if you enjoy riding for fun or exercise
then you probably know more than a few local bike trails depending on where you live these can take
you through some really beautiful parts of town and the surrounding countryside if you head to the
lead and zinc mines in mexico a town in slovenia you'll find arguably the most unique bike trail
in the world the black hole trail is about 10 kilometers long and descends into the earth 150
meters over five different levels the mine itself was abandoned over 25 years ago until someone got
the bright idea to bring it to life again as a trail it's a challenging enduro trail for serious
riders and you can't navigate it without a guide like any mine there are a lot of twists and turns
that could be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing number three a stash of 1930s cars
in 2016 a belgian teacher was roaming through a mine in a french quarry as one does when he was
down there he stumbled upon tunnels and tunnels of old european cars dating back to the 1930s
these cars were showing their age but they had all clearly been parked there on purpose at some point
nearly a hundred years ago it's believed the cars date back to world war ii the germans took cars as
they needed or wanted them because of that it's possible the mine was used as a secret stash a
place to hide the cars until the war was over unfortunately it looks like whoever put them there
never came back to retrieve them after the war the end result is a mine full of rusted out hunks
that have little monetary value but are certainly historically significant number 2. a theme park
selena turner may not sound enticing to english-speaking thrill-seekers but it's
definitely worth a look if you want some unique fun located in romania the selena turtle mine
was a salt mine that dates back an incredibly long time the first mention of it in books was
from the year 1075. they continued producing salt for hundreds of years until 1932.
during the second world war the mine saw use as a bomb shelter before being shut down yet again
in the 1990s after some extensive and expensive renovations the mine was reopened to the public
not just a halotherapy spa which means salt therapy it's also a subterranean amusement park
the facility features mini golf bowling a ferris wheel an underground lake and billiards among
other things it's located 120 metres down and you can choose to take the elevator
or try the stairs 1. world's largest freshwater dive resort the bonterra lead mine was carved into
the rock under the town of bonterra missouri over the course of 100 years when the mine finally shut
down in 1962 the company in charge shut the power off and that included shutting down water pumps
soon enough water began to fill in the mine but it wasn't just a little bit of water by any means the
current owners bought the abandoned mine in the 1970s and by that time the three lowest levels of
the mine were totally underwater that was roughly 88 miles of tunnels the surface has 17 miles of
navigable shoreline making it the world's largest underground freshwater lake over 500 000 watts of
lighting have been installed to make the mine the world's biggest underground dive resort the water
stays at a constant temperature all year round and visibility is excellent the depths feature
all of the mining equipment that was abandoned to time they call it the billion gallon lake and
that many miles of tunnels all under water and with some locations going down 40 to 60 feet
it does seem like an appropriate name there are dozens of passageways to explore and many are
only accessible to experienced divers due to the complex winding of the tunnels so i really
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