Mining

Roles: miner, shaft, seam, ore, canary, collapse, extraction, hazard, depth

The extraction of minerals and ores from underground or open-pit workings. As a source domain, mining imports a structure of descent into hidden depths, extraction of valuable material from worthless matrix, and ever-present danger of collapse, flooding, or toxic atmosphere. The frame carries assumptions about risk proportional to depth, the invisibility of underground conditions from the surface, and the need for early-warning systems. Mining metaphors pervade knowledge work (data mining, gold mine, deep dive, canary in a coal mine) precisely because the felt experience of searching for something valuable in dangerous, opaque conditions transfers broadly.

As Source Frame (2)

• Canary in a Coal Mine → risk-and-uncertainty
• Panning for Gold → evaluation-and-judgment, decision-making