Maryland Coal Mine Mapping Project |
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Search the Collection Project ConstituentsFrostburg State University 
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The Maryland Coal Mine Mapping ProjectFrostburg State University, the Maryland Bureau of Mines, and the Maryland Power Plant Research Program have undertaken a joint, cooperative venture to collect, catalog, preserve, interpret, and provide access to the historical record of mining in Maryland, focusing on the mining of coal in Western Maryland. Consolidating, cataloging, and indexing these materials will be accomplished for the purpose of providing maps for public safety, identifying subsidence prone areas, facilitating ongoing environmental restoration efforts by the Maryland Bureau of Mines to mitigate the environmental impacts of pre-law (1977) historic coal mining in Maryland's Appalachian Mountain region and for various other economic and environmental considerations. About the ProjectIn early 2003, initial contact was made between the Maryland Bureau of Mines and the Lewis J. Ort Library at Frostburg State University to evaluate the possibility of creating a digital record of historic coal mining maps in Maryland. The Maryland Bureau of Mines had a large collection of maps, many of which were in poor physical condition, that were obtained through its permitting process. The Lewis J. Ort Library had a somewhat smaller collection of maps that had been obtained in 1987 as part of the J.J. Rutledge (the first Superintendent of Mining in Maryland) Collection. The primary goal of the project was to capture in an electronically retrievable form, the vital data and information contained within the mining industry records for the state of Maryland. From these records a spatial database will be developed and all information will be available and retrievable online. The records consist of approximately 500 historic mine maps, 1,000 mining related maps, several hundred photographs, 125 years of Bureau of Mines Annual Reports, and over 500 permitting documents. Aquisitions and SortingThe primary goal of the project was to capture in an electronically retrievable form the vital data and information contained within the mining industry records for the state of Maryland. The records consist of approximately 500 historic mine maps, 1,000 mining related maps, several hundred photographs, 125 years of Bureau of Mines Annual Reports, and over 500 permitting documents. Libraries have the tools and personnel best suited to organizing, tracking, and preserving vast amounts of data; subsequently the Maryland Bureau of Mines determined that the best way to preserve and catalog this information was through an agreement with the Lewis J. Ort Library. Scanning and CatalogingScanning maps is not difficult, provided you have the proper equipment and well tailored software for your scanner. This project's focus is to creatin digital archives of all the Bureau Of Mines and J.J. Rutledge coal mine maps, related maps and text documents. Project staff uses a 54" Colortrac roll scanner to capture the information from each mine map in digital form. PDF CreationAnother part of the Bureau of Mines and Rutledge collections is a vast array of documents, reports and books. This part of the Mapping Project is aimed at creating digital and character searchable PDF documents. The focus has been on The Bureau of Mines annual reports from 1876 to the present. All of the annual reports that are accounted for have been digitally scanned and compressed. An Optical Character Recognition program deciphers the text of the scanned documents and translates them into searchable PDF documents. GIS DevelopmentThe Underground Mining data developed by the Bureau of Mines with the cooperation of Frostburg State University has many practical purposes. How to distribute and get this data out to possible users however, is challenging. Internet mapping software is being explored for the display of the geospatial data. Currently shapefiles exist and will be available for download when the quality control is completed. |