Richard Kulczewski, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Labor, confirmed the meeting is underway as of 10:30 a.m.

The miners' families this morning were shown a video captured by a camera dropped into the mine via a fourth borehole Saturday. There is no word yet on what that video shows, or when it will be made public.

The miners - Don Erickson, Manuel Sanchez, Kerry Allred, Luis Hernandez, Brandon Phillips and Juan Carlos Payan - were trapped Aug. 6 by a massive collapse of the walls of the tunnel where they were working.

A microphone lowered into the fourth borehole Saturday detected no sound from the miners, even though rescuers banged on the steel drill pipe and set off explosive charges hoping to make contact. Three previous boreholes also failed to locate the miners.

That fourth borehole was in the back of the mine, where oxygen enough to sustain life was found. Rescuers Saturday night said they were poised to begin drilling a fifth borehole nearly 1,200 feet back up the tunnel.

The Mining Safety and Health Administration has called in consultants from West Virginia University, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and private business to help figure out if an underground rescue is possible.

Rescue mining in the tunnel - an attempt to remove perhaps 2,500 feet of coal that blocked the tunnel during the original Aug. 6 explosion - was suspended Thursday night after a wall collapsed, smashing into nine rescuers. Three men died and six were injured.

MSHA had already consulted the experts in mine support systems, and figured it was installing the maximum possible support in the attempt to make the tunnel safe for a rescue.

They were placing 8-inch steel posts and massive wood timbers every 30 inches along the walls, with steel cables and chain link fencing in between.

Richard Stickler, assistant secretary of Labor and head of MSHA, said Saturday night that the Crandall Canyon Mine poses particular difficulties.

Support systems are usually designed to support the ceilings from the weight of the earth above, but the movement in the mountain above Crandall Canyon is shifting the pressure to the walls.

"What we have is force coming in from the ribs (sides)," Stickler said.

But, he said, if the experts can devise a way to make mining safe, it will resume.

"If we can design a support system that can ensure the safety....there will be workers quite willing to join that operation."

MSHA on Saturday brought in a large mobile meeting room, placed it at the mouth of the mine and equipped it with chairs, tables, maps and projectors. It is near the mine's engineering department, which has extensive mine maps.