Many places around the world use defunct salt mines for storage.In the UK, there's a salt mine storage facility that's being filled up as the mine continues! See, this mine is so big that underground chambers are emptied and used top store not only historical records, but actual historical items that may one day be displayed in a museum, while mining is still going on somewhat down the line, so to speak. The salt itself makes up the walls of the facility, and also cause it to have much lower humidity than above-ground storage or other kinds of underground holes. Tom Scott takes us on a tour of this underground storage facility and finds out what they'll tell us and what they won't about the treasures stored there for posterity.
The US has a number of the salt mine storage areas. The Mormons have a huge one for genealogy records storage, and the Federal government has some too. But the one that really surprised me is the national energy reserves where crude oil is stored in hollowed out salt domes. Why doesn't the oil dissolve the salt? Damifino.
ReplyDeleteYeah, apparently it's not the oil, but the water used to pump the oil that's a problem.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.atlasobscura.com/places/bryan-mound-strategic-petroleum-reserve