6th Hole In Utah Mine Finds Nothing

In a story at Yahoo News this morning the news is not good. The sixth hole drilled to find the miners in Utah, did not find any sign of them.

What next? That was the question remaining after a drill punched a sixth hole through a mine shaft and found no sign of six miners last seen before a massive collapse nearly three weeks ago. Federal safety officials told families of the missing miners they would conduct testing — air samples, signaling in hopes of a response from the men, and dropping a video camera into the mine shaft — but have been less than hopeful about the results, which were expected to be announced Sunday.

The families are obviously upset and want them to continue looking for the miners until they find them, no matter how long it takes. There was some speculation that they might try a seventh hole, but it was not high on their priority list. The search should continue through drilling holes, as long as it does not put anyone else in danger.

I have been wondering if there is some other means of detecting open spaces underground, where they might be holed up. One method I looked up was GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar), and I am not sure if it is viable in the type of ground where the mine is located, but is anyone looking into these other possibilities. I have a link to the wikipedia information for a deeper explanation of GPR, but basically it uses radio waves to find things underground, and can penetrate anywhere from 0.3 centimeters to 15 miles depending on the make-up of the ground it is being used on, and its' electrical conductivity.

These miners deserve every legitimate effort be made to find and recover them, and my hopes are that Mr. Murray and company will do the right thing and keep looking for a while longer. Let the families of the miners know that everything humanely or technically possible was done, before making the decision to turn this mine into a tomb.

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