In the original query, the phrase was "mining related compromise
of the earth's surface"
The use of the word "compromise" makes me wonder if the
questioner was thinking of untoward openings at surface caused
by mining, such as subsidence and swallow-holes.
There are, I believe, some such holes over former hematite iron
ore workings in Cumberland.
Some time before I visited Rio Tinto copper mine in Spain in
1955, there had been a collapse of a stope roof which happened
to be under a surface reservoir tank. As the roof collapsed,
the water acted as an air-tight seal, so the whole thing acted like
a piston causing a rush of air through the underground workings
below. Some of these were accessed by horizontal tunnels
(adits, levels, drifts, haulage roads) driven into the sides of a
deep open pit, and a rather surprised locomotive driver found
himself and his train blown back out of the (adit, level, haulage
road) underground tunnel into the open air.
Tony Brewis
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