Visit to Boulby Potash Mine

As we were on an early start (and a day off from work), Keith had driven up from Rugby yesterday evening to spend the night with us. After he had arrived, he set off to drive to Buxton followed by Karen in her car so that he could park his car there as Karen and I had tickets to see Andy Kirkpatrick giving a talk in Buxton Opera House tonight at 19:30. This way we could drop Keith and Nikki Adlam-Styles off in Buxton (who was going to come with us) on our return in order to save time, which would be very tight as it would take a three hour drive to get back from Boulby. The talk was originally for a February date but it had been postponed for March and just happened to all on today's date. They also stopped off at a supermarket and bought some sandwiches to bring with us tomorrow.
Nikki arrived in the morning as arranged and we set off at 06:30 in Karen's car. We travelled north mainly on the A1and luckily had no hold ups or problems and when we were near the mine with about half an hour to spare, we parked up in a layby to eat our sandwiches for breakfast.
Continuing on to the entrance to the mine site, we called in at the reception area and then parked up to find Mick Hog had arrived already and was waiting for others to arrive. Not long after this Brian Potts arrived and joined us in the small pull-in by the reception building. The only others left to come were Boyd Potts and Mark Silo, who were travelling together.
After waiting for ten minutes or so, we learned that Boy and Mark had arrived some time ago and were parked in the main car park!
Oh well, we move on and found some spaces to park up and then walked to the office building where we were met by on the the managerial staff who brought us into the building.
We were led into a conference room and had an interesting session on the history of the mine and its workings. There were also teas and coffees and even better, very delicious bacon butties!
Around lunchtime, we dropped bags and things off in a smaller office room and then walked to another building where the men were shown into a visitors' changing room and Karen and Nikki were brought to a separate location to get changed.
We were each allocated a locker with a key labelled with our name. Dave Phillips had been sent a form for us to fill in with shoe size, chest size and height and we found each of our allocated lockers had appropriately sized cloth to wear on our trip underground.
We had been asked to bring thick socks, but everything else was provided. We had some natty light-weight high-visibility shirts and shorts, boots, shin pads, high-visibility vests and site helmets with attached ear defenders. In addition, we were also given disposable dust face masks and plastic safety glasses.
Once changed, we moved on to where the mining lamps and “self-rescuers” (a small breathing apparatus to filter out carbon monoxide for a couple of hours in case of fire) and after being allocated a number, we took the mining lamp and “self-rescuer” badged up with the same number off the charging rack. The lamps were Oldhams made with LED headsets and small waist-mounted Li-ion cells.
Next we moved on to a large hatch where we were issued with belts to mount the “self-rescuers” and lamp cells plus a small holster to carry a small bottle of water. We were also allocated small metal tags, one triangular and one circular.
Once we were all kitted up, we went through a series of metal doors forming an air-lock to arrive at the large gated lift-shaft. There are two lift-shafts: one for moving miners up and down into and from the mine and a second for moving the potash or salt to the surface. There was a forced air ventilation system with air being blown down one shaft then circulated around the mine and back up the second shaft, so it was quite noisy as we were waiting for the lift to arrive.
The lift had two sections of different sizes and we travelled down in the smaller, each of us handing over one of the metal tags to the “banksman” as we got into the lift cage. Its one kilometre down and took six minutes to travel from the surface! You could see a lot as the lift cage walls were covered in opaque plastic sheets.
When we arrived at the bottom of the shaft and the lift cage shuttering was removed, we walked out into the dusty, salty and hot, dry atmosphere which prevails underground. We were led a short distance around the side of the shaft, kicking up dust from the floor as we went, with the temperature getting hotter (it was around 30 degrees C in the sections of the mine we would visit with up to 45 degrees in deeper sections) as the air was on its way back from hotter sections of the mine. This was so we could have a look at a conveyor belt travelling along the previously-mined potash on its way to the surface.
Heading back the way we came, we walked back past the shaft and after a short distance arrived at several vehicles parked up for use underground. As with all these vehicles (various small trucks, Land Rovers, vans and a pink-coloured buggy called the “Pink Panther”) plus the large mining machinery, they had all arrived underground after being lowered down one of the mine shafts. Because fires underground cause so much danger with gasses given off, all the vehicles are stripped of unnecessary electrical equipment and wiring leaving only lights and the bare essentials.
Our guide got in the drivers seat of a small open-backed truck with Karen and Nikki joining him in the cab, while the rest of us climbed on the back to sit on cushioned benches mounted low on the load platform.
We drove around 6 or 7 miles, apparently, ending up beneath the North Sea near one of the working areas. We were travelling probably round 25 mph for most of it but it seemed quite quick with the distance to the side walls and roof not very far. We started off in a section of salt (Sodium Chloride) and then reached an an area of Potassium Chloride (or Potash). The Potash is the main product of the mine (for fertiliser) but some Sodium Chloride is also mined as Road Salt for spreading on the roads during icy periods. They prefer to mine the potash as its price is about 10 times higher than the salt!
As the mine's roof is always gradually dropping, we passed side sections with towers of wood sections arranged like a Jenga game. Karen spotted on of these that had greatly reduced in height since her last visit with Wirksworth Mine Research Group a couple of years ago. The roofs of the areas where the salt or potash had been removed gradually lower due to the layers of mineral and rock above.
After stopping the vehicle we walked along the large passageway and were brought to a face where the potash was being extracted by one of the large mining machines. These have a large rotating section with loads of small teeth mad of tungsten or another similar hard metal and the machine is controlled by on of the men standing to one side and using a control box connected by a cable.
At another location we watched a pair of men drilling and setting the long bolts used to stabilise the roof. First a long hole, around on and a half metres was drilled in the potash roof and then a tube if epoxy glue in a plastic case was inserted into the hole. Finally the bolt was screwed into the resin in the hole and left to dry. During the pre-underground talk the technique was illustrated using a telephone directory. When the directory was placed with its edges on two supports, it sagged in the middle and collapsed. When a second telephone directory with a large number of bolts connected through the pages was placed on the supports. It remained in place and was relatively rigid. This was because the bolts prevented the directory's pages from sliding over each other and causing the directory to sag. The bolts in the potash were doing the same job and prevented layers of potash sliding over each other and made the roof layer more rigid.
Then we moved onto another nearby section of the mine which was no longer being worked and also had bolts placed in the side walls. As the guide was talking there was a loud “POP” and we saw that the small metal plate on one of the bolts in the wall had gone and a section of the bolt was now sticking out of the wall! Obviously the wall had moved a little and it was suggested we move onwards!
We made our way back to the same vehicle we had travelled in previously and all got in the back or in the cab and started the drive back to where we had started.
After parking up we walked the short distance back to near the bottom of the shaft and waited for the cage to arrive around a corner in a large side passage so that we would be out of the strong wind caused by the mine ventilation. We were joined by two of the scientists working on the Dark Matter project which has a lab in the mine which isolated it from a lot of the background interference and radiation while they attempted to detect the dark Matter. They were travelling back to the surface as well.
Soon there was a signal that the cage was ready and we all joined a few miners also heading out and we all got into the lift cage (the larger one this time) and were soon heading back up the shaft to the surface.
Once back at ground level, we exited the lift, handing over the second metal tag as we did so and then walked back to the lamp charging area and replaced our lamps and self rescuers and the also handed over the other items we had borrowed.
After this we returned to the changing room to have a shower and change back into our clothes and then waited for Karen and Nikki to turn up after they had also showered and changed.
We returned to one of the offices, the one where we had dropped of our stuff earlier, and had a hot drink and Kit Kats while a large survey of the mine was spread on the table and we traced out where we had been.
Soon we were ready to go home and after saying “good bye” to everyone, Karen, myself, Keith and Nikki headed back to Buxton hoping we would be back on time for the talk by Andy Kirkpatrick at Buxton Opera House which Karen and I had tickets for, which was starting at 19:30.

We arrived in Buxton with minutes to spare, stopped near where Keith had parked his car in the morning and “kicked” Keith and Nikki out, said “good-bye” and drove quickly to our usual parking place at the top of The Slopes, then walking quickly or running, we arrived ta the doors of the Opera House at 19:31. Just made it! And as expected, Andy's talk “Unreasonable Climbing”, mainly about his recent climb in Ulvetanna in the Antartic, was excellent.