# A Lake Dries Up. A Mine: **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 30, 2016, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-lake-dries-up-a-mine/764446 "2016-08-30T00:07:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-lake-dries-up-a-mine/764446/21 "2016-08-30T20:45:30Z")
On the mines I’ve worked on, we’d say a particular area/seam was “mined out” but the overall ore reserve was “depleted” ---
**Author:** ![quiltguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e47774/32.png) [@quiltguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quiltguy)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-lake-dries-up-a-mine/764446/22 "2016-08-31T12:18:43Z")
A mine becomes unSEAMly. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Saffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saffer/32/6440_2.png) [@Saffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saffer)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-lake-dries-up-a-mine/764446/23 "2016-08-31T13:56:08Z")
> [@quiltguy](#): > > A mine becomes unSEAMly. 😃 Seamless? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-lake-dries-up-a-mine/764446/24 "2016-08-31T15:53:57Z")
The official industry terms: “Played out like a 60 year old hooker.” “Emptier than a politician’s promise.” “More barren than your grandma” “Easier pickings Sunday night, at the end of a three day yard sale.” “Scantier than a Chinese buffet before closing time.” “A good place to throw your trash.” “Take a colonic irrigation to get that hole to spit out a nugget.” “Even more dried out than your sister.” “Most valuable thing left down there are the memories of the time I boinked your girlfriend while riding the lift, and you can’t sell sentimental value.” “Baby? Check. Got that. Afterbirth? Check. Got that. What the hell else you think’s coming out of that hole?” “Fished out” “Crapped out” “Kaput” “Closing time” "Only thing left to do is sell it to those guys on “Gold Rush.” ---
**Author:** ![troub](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troub/32/14802_2.png) [@troub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/troub)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-lake-dries-up-a-mine/764446/25 "2016-08-31T16:02:29Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > People who actually work in the field, and people who report on the field and are familiar with it, as opposed to merely talking about the field, have a strong tendency to use “played out.” I don’t doubt it…my post was just a tongue-in-cheek reference to resource gathering in Starcraft, while also backing up the posters suggesting “depleted” and “exhausted” since those are the terms used when your resources start running out (and I’m sure the more colloquial “played out” is/was extremely common in regular use, especially by crusty old turn of the 20th century prospector types 😃 ) ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-lake-dries-up-a-mine/764446/26 "2016-08-31T20:15:34Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > This. > > You can do this to trousers, too. So, the trouser mine was depleted? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-lake-dries-up-a-mine/764446/27 "2016-08-31T22:32:48Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > Minds work in different ways - I thought the thread title was supposed to be a palindrome. > [@Ludovic](#): > > …Panama! I read it as “A lake dries up a mine”. And thought of the time a mine both dried up a lake and ended its own life (i.e. dried itself up economically) in the process. See [Lake Peigneur - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Peigneur) for the facts and [Lake Peigneur: The Swirling Vortex of Doom • Damn Interesting](https://www.damninteresting.com/lake-peigneur-the-swirling-vortex-of-doom/) for the colorful version. I was hoping the OP had a link to some new bizarre disaster like that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-lake-dries-up-a-mine/764446.md?page=1)