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Database of historical anthracite coal-mining infrastructure at the northern end of the Lackawanna syncline, Wayne, Susquehanna, and Lackawanna counties, Pennsylvania

Metadata Updated: October 8, 2025

Abandoned railroads and infrastructure from the anthracite coal mining industry are significant features in abandoned mine lands and are an important part of history; however, these features are often lost and masked by the passage of time and the regrowth of forests. The application of modern light detection and ranging (lidar) topographic analysis, combined with ground-truthing "boots on the ground" mapping, enable recovery of the location of these historical features. Waste rock piles and abandoned mine lands from historical mining locally appear as distinct features on the landscape depicted on the percent slope map. Abandoned, and in many places demolished, infrastructure such as breakers, turntables, rail beds, water tanks, tram piers, and bridge abutments, to name a few, were confirmed in the field and located with a global positioning system (GPS) receiver. This map captures the locations of many of the abandoned features from the coal mining industry near Forest City, Pennsylvania, and preserves a time that was an important part of the industrial revolution and a way of life that has been quiet for over half a century. The data layers should be used in conjunction with lidar data available separately at https://www.pasda.psu.edu.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 8, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 8, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-63da97f9d34e9fa19a97d60a
Data Last Modified 2023-06-23T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 9ba4a749-14cc-49a6-9750-6beffc140810
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -75.49490, 41.59343, -75.45029, 41.66709
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 10afe55516da5151fe135dee1d8c43713dec8b8dd29ae6ef9c7a77e8838a7e5d
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -75.49490, 41.59343, -75.49490, 41.66709, -75.45029, 41.66709, -75.45029, 41.59343, -75.49490, 41.59343}

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