Abandoned Coal Mine Drainage Could Be a Significant Source of Carbon Emissions

Currently unaccounted for, unremediated discharge from old mines can transport CO2 from bedrock to the atmosphere

In research presented last week at GSA Connects 2025 in San Antonio, Texas, USA, Dr. Dorothy Vesper, a geochemist at West Virginia University, found that those abandoned mines pose another risk: continuous CO2 emissions from water that leaks out even decades or centuries after mining stops.