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ADIT (ADD-it)
An
entrance to a mine
Common
clues: Mine
entrance; Mine passage; Collier's entrance; Access for a collier;
Shaft entrance; Way into a mine; Horizontal mine entrance;
Entrance for extraction
Crossword
puzzle frequency:
3 times a year
Frequency
in English language:
69696 / 86800
News:
A
Year Out of the Dark in Chile, but Still Trapped
Video:
Medieval
gold mine adit in Bohemia
An
adit is a type of entrance to an underground mining operation in
which the entrance shaft is horizontal or nearly horizontal.
Adits are usually built into the side of a hill or mountain, and
often occur when a measure of coal or an ore body is located
inside the mountain but above the adjacent valley floor or
coastal plain. The use of adits is generally called drift mining.
Gated
entrance to an abandoned adit
Adits
have many advantages over conventional mining pits with vertical
access shafts. Less energy is required to transport miners,
horses and heavy equipment into and out of the mine. It is also
much easier to transport coal or ore out of the mine. Horizontal
travel by means of narrow gauge tramway or cable car is also much
safer and can move more people and coal than vertical elevators.
In some situations, mines with adits can be drained of water by
gravity alone or power-assisted gravity.
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Adit".
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