1. Acceptance
By accessing or using UndergroundMines.com (“the Site”), you agree to these Terms of Use, our Privacy Policy, and our Mine Safety Notice. If you do not agree, do not use the Site.
2. What the Site provides
UndergroundMines.com is an independent research catalog of documented underground mines and historic underground workings, with emphasis on California, Nevada, and Arizona. Content may include government and third-party source data (for example USGS/MRDS and Mindat locality information), moderated community submissions, member verifications, photos, trip reports, and privacy-aware maps.
The Site is provided for personal research, education, and community documentation. It is not a field guide for underground entry, a land-access service, or professional legal, surveying, engineering, or safety advice.
3. No access authorization; assume hazard
- A listing, coordinate, map marker, verification, visit record, photo, or trip report does not grant permission to enter any property or underground working.
- You are solely responsible for verifying land ownership, permits, closures, and applicable laws before visiting any surface location.
- You assume all risk arising from use of Site information in the field. See the Mine Safety Notice and Access Disclaimer.
4. Accounts and eligibility
- You must provide accurate registration information and keep your credentials secure.
- You are responsible for activity under your account.
- We may suspend or terminate accounts that abuse the Site, attempt to harvest protected coordinates, upload unauthorized content, spam, harass others, or encourage unsafe or illegal activity.
5. Membership tiers and coordinate access
- Guests and free members receive privacy-limited location display. Exact gated coordinates are withheld from page source, scripts, and public API payloads for those tiers.
- Explorer Pro may unlock exact coordinates only where the Site’s access rules, contributor choices, and administrative restrictions permit.
- Some locations remain private, restricted, generalized, privacy-offset, or hidden regardless of membership.
- Approximate Area markers may be intentionally displaced and are not surveyed pins.
- If Explorer Pro checkout is enabled, payment is processed by Stripe under Stripe’s terms; subscription details shown at purchase also apply.
6. Community content and submissions
When you submit verifications, flags, condition or feature reports, photos, mine candidates, private-mine promotions, trip reports, comments, or other content, you represent that:
- you have the rights needed to submit it;
- it is truthful to the best of your knowledge;
- it does not include instructions for bypassing closures or committing trespass;
- it does not infringe others’ rights or contain illegal material.
You retain ownership of original content you create. You grant UndergroundMines.com a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, moderate, display, and distribute that content as needed to operate the Site and the features you enable (including public display when you choose public settings).
Community submissions may be moderated, edited for clarity/safety, rejected, or removed. Publication is not guaranteed.
7. Public sharing and location privacy duties
- Public explorer profiles, public trips, and public visit reports are designed not to include stored mine coordinates, map pins, roads/directions from private planning data, or photo GPS metadata.
- You remain responsible for not typing identifying coordinates, turn-by-turn directions, or other sensitive location details into public stories, captions, or comments.
- Private trip planning notes, private mine coordinates, and private attachments stay private to your account except as needed for site operation, moderation, or legal compliance.
8. Acceptable use
You agree not to:
- scrape, harvest, or bulk-export protected exact coordinates or private member data;
- bypass authentication, membership gates, CSRF protections, or rate limits;
- interfere with Site infrastructure or other users;
- upload malware or automated spam;
- use the Site to plan or promote illegal entry, vandalism, or unsafe underground exploration;
- misrepresent identity, affiliations, or source evidence.
9. Third-party data and links
Catalog records may incorporate or reference third-party datasets and websites (including government sources and Mindat). Third-party content remains subject to those providers’ terms and accuracy limitations. Links are provided for research convenience and do not imply endorsement.
10. Intellectual property
Site branding, design, software, and original editorial materials are owned by UndergroundMines.com or its licensors. You may not copy the Site as a competing service or reuse substantial database extracts except as allowed by law or written permission.
11. Disclaimer of warranties
THE SITE AND ALL CONTENT ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE.” WE DISCLAIM WARRANTIES OF ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW. Source data, coordinates, statuses, and member reports may contain errors or omissions.
12. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, UndergroundMines.com and its operators are not liable for any injury, death, property damage, trespass claim, loss of data, or other damages arising from use of the Site or reliance on its content — including field visits to mine sites. Your sole remedy for dissatisfaction is to stop using the Site.
13. Indemnity
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless UndergroundMines.com and its operators from claims arising out of your misuse of the Site, your field activities, your uploaded content, or your violation of these Terms.
14. Changes
We may update these Terms. Continued use after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms. Material changes may also be noted on the Site.
15. Contact
Questions about these Terms: Contact us.
Last updated: August 10, 2026