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By J. Y. Murdoch

TAXATION has become a major item in the operation of Canadian mines, and, as such, merits our most serious consideration. I feel it was a splendid idea for the Institute to set aside this time for a frank discussion of this important subject, and believe great benefit will result from a better understanding of the methods and underlying principles involved. Mining, as a great national industry, may quite properly be called upon to pay its fair share of the cost of running the country; and there is no tendency on our part to avoid this responsibility. There is, however, a very definite demand that the proportion be just, and fairly and sensibly applied. I believe that Mr. C. G. Williams, Secretary of the Canadian Metal Mining Association, and others, are giving details of the various Provincial and Dominion regulati6ns, so I shall not touch on that phase of the situation. However, there are some important factors to which I should like very briefly to call your attention. The first is the vital need for stability. As you all know, a considerable period must elapse between the preliminary stages of any mining venture and the time when it comes to production-or is finally abandoned as un-profitable. These early days are fraught with many unavoidable uncertainties. If, to these natural hazards, the apprehension of instability of governmental action be added, the risk becomes so great that capital seeks other and safer fields for investment, and many otherwise promising projects are thus discarded. There probably never has been a time in recent years when so much money was seeking investment as now. Under favourable conditions, the development of our great mineral resources would be a natural and attractive outlet for this money. The amount of taxation which the mining industry can properly absorb is of the utmost importance at this time, and it might be well to consider this question in its relation to the economic stability of our country, for it cannot be too greatly emphasized that direct taxation is only one item in the net return which our governments derive from the mining industry. Indeed, the many indirect benefits are so manifest that it would seem almost unnecessary to enumerate them! We almost invariably think of mine taxation as a direct company tax-overlooking the fact that sales tax, customs duties, acreage tax, income tax on mine dividends, foreign shareholders' dividend tax, and others, must all be taken into consideration. It would seem that the economic value of non-ferrous metal mining in Canada is not sufficiently understood and appreciated.

Jan 1, 1935

Application of microprocessors, programmable logic devices, and other computer-oriented hardware and software on-board large surface mining equipment to optimize availability and productivity, stretch machine life, and protect against catastrophic breakdown has been a goal of heavy-equipment manufacturers for several years. Progress in this direction has not been as rapid as many manufacturers anticipated in the mid-1980s, and, on the other side of the coin, mining industry and machine operator acceptance of such products has not always been enthusiastic. However, the trend toward such development seems undeniable. Large surface mining equipment in the future will doubtless carry more, and not fewer, applications of computers and computer-related products. The intensity of development interest and degree of progress in commercializing such on-board computer and computer-related products on surface mining equipment varies considerably among the manufacturers. Summarized here are the on-board computer-oriented products of three heavy-equipment suppliers-P&H Harnishfeger, Marathon LeTourneau, and Haulpak not a comprehensive survey, but, perhaps indicative of the direction such development is taking.

Jan 1, 1990

By Zhou Lu-Jian

The Port of Shekou is situated at Shenzhen Bay on the east bank of Lingding Ocean. Its coastline is about 6 km long and the water depth near the shore is Favourable. Across the bay is the ' New Territories " of Hong Kong. The port is at a distance of 22-23 seamilesaway from center of Hong Kong and 80 seamiles to Huangpu Harbour of Guangzhou, its highway links with Shen-Guang Highay. Since 19 79 China Merchants Group of the Transportation Department, began to set up Shekou Industrial Zone, the port has been developing and flouri­shing in business. With 15 large or small berths in all, the present portline is 2600 m, and the annual cargo throughout is over 3,000,000 tons and the annual passenger traffic is about 2,000,000 persons. Equalling a medium-scale seaport, it has been officially approved as an oceangoing transit port by the ministry of Transportation. The construction of Shekou port is chara-terized by the self-collected funds and the short construction period. In view of this, the optional plan of the port structure must serve the requirements of simplicity in struture, economy in mate­rial and speed in construction. That accounts for the most application of the sheet piling type to the port in Shekou. Once the project was approved, the cons­truction started. Only within an average period of 7-8 months, a deep water pier was completed and put into operation, which covered series of processes from exploration, designing, tender for con­struction to completion.

Jan 1, 1991

By D. W. Breck

Zeolites were first recognized as a new group of minerals by Cronstedt with the discovery of stilbite in 1756. The word zeolite was coined from the two Greek words meaning "to boil" and "a stone" because of the loss of water when heated in the mineralogist's blowpipe (Breck, 1974). In 1845 it was discovered that certain soils lave the power of retaining ammonium salts Way, 1850). These were the first ion exchange experiments. Later it was discovered that it was the hydrated silicates in the soil that produced this phenomenon. Several years later a paper was published dealing with the action of dilute salt solutions on silicates which showed that this base-exchange principle, which we now call cation exchange, is reversible. The quantitative cation exchange behavior of zeolite minerals, such as chabazite, was studied. As a result any aluminosilicate which exhibited the property of ion exchange was referred to as a "zeolite," even today the term has been applied to clay minerals as well as synthetic organic ion exchange resins.

Jan 1, 1975

By F. E. Cash

The Holmes Safety Association was organized and named in honor of the late Dr. Joseph A. Holmes, first director of the United States Bureau of Mines. The association is a national organization and operates through local, sectional, or State chapters in mining, petroleum, and allied industries. The National Council of the Holmes Safety Association consists of representatives of State councils and local chapters, with the Director of the Bureau of Mines as president.

Jan 1, 1929

By Bruce Bryant

Silver ore was discovered at Aspen in 1879, but the district did not reach full production until 1888 after lawsuits were settled and railroads furnished less expensive transportation to the outside world. The boom years were 1888-92; production declined thereafter. From the middle 1920's until 1950, the Midnight mine in the Richmond Hill district furnished most of the output in the Aspen quadrangle. Since 1950, little mining has been done at Aspen. The metals produced were silver, lead and zinc. Native silver dissolved from the sulfide ores was redeposited by waters circulating as deep as 300 m below the land surface, resulting in great secondary enrichment of many of the deposits. Over 100 million ounces of silver were produced in the Aspen quadrangle. Low-grade lead-zinc deposits remain between the old workings locally, and data available suggest that primary ore below levels mined is also of low grade. The ore occurs in the Mississippian Leadville Limestone and the lower part of the Pennsylvanian Belden Formation in sites that were made favorable for deposition by a number of stratigraphic and structural factors.

Jan 1, 1982

By Joseph Jensen

MANY fields have been zoned by nature with shales and intermediate waters between oil zones. Limitations thus imposed have been the basis on which the field was developed. In contrast thereto, in the Ventura Avenue Field, nature proved more generous. Always expecting to find such similar limitations, operators drilled deeper and deeper into the oil zone without finding any distinctive shale bodies other that the Gosnell shale and only one intermediate water, which became the point below which the final water shut-off of each well was made. Thus, on top of the structure, about 3300 ft. of oil-bearing zone has been penetrated below this intermediate w9ter-a distance of 4000 ft. below the Gosnell shale. At first it seemed that the greater the penetration in the zone, the better the well. The error of this assumption became evident

Jan 1, 1930

By D Crequer

Land rehabilitation at Golden Cross is reviewed, 8 years after mine closure in 1997/98, from the perspectives of a Peer Reviewer (land rehabilitation) and a Regional Council Officer (Resource Consents compliance). Land rehabilitation items we discuss include: management of restored pastures, native plantings (on-site riparian and block plantings and off-site environmental riparian enhancement plantings), wetlands (on-site tailings lake and sediment ponds littoral zone plantings, and basement of the open pit; and off-site wetlands enhancement plantings), pine plantations on-site and on surrounding land, stabilization of the Tailings Lake Embankment (landslide) and Open Pit capping, capping of acid-mine-rock, stability of discharge channels, buildings and amenities, public access for recreation, educational uses, and future management of the site. Pest control has helped to conserve the rare and endangered HochstetterÆs (Leiopelma hochstetteri) and ArcheyÆs (L. archeyi) frogs, and a regionally significant stand of rare swamp maire (Syzygium maire) has been conserved and fenced.

Jan 1, 2006

By R. A. Isberg

This report describes the design and implementation of UHF radio and closed-circuit television systems in the Black River room and pillar limestone mine near Butler, Pendleton County, Kentucky. Prior to designing the radio system, measurements of signal attenuation on 812 and 466 mHz were made in the slope tunnel and in the straight and level crosscuts in the mine. Two distributed antenna systems fed by two sets of base stations provide approximately 75o coverage of the mine. Passive reflectors are used for extending signals into intersecting crosscuts and two-way signal boosters will be used to extend signals to the perimeter and obstructed areas of the mine. Fourteen mine vehicles were equipped with mobile radios equipped with digital identification, alarm and status encoders. Fifteen portable transceivers also were used. Six closed-circuit television cameras provide surveillance of critical transfer points of the belt conveyor system, and the loading dock at the base of the slope and an ash disposal area in the mine. Two-way radio communication and closed-circuit television have saved considerable man. hours, increased production, reduced maintenance costs and enhanced safety. Innovative developments were the use of passive reflectors and two-way signal boosters for extending signals into intersecting crosscuts, development of lightweight signal margin measuring equipment, modifications of mobile digital encoders to automatically send status information from mine vehicles such as numbers of loads of ore delivered, hot engine, etc., and the use of CATV technology for multiplexing audio, digital and video signals onto coaxial cables from the surface to the mine.

Jan 1, 1981

By Albaharna O. T., Argyropoulos S. A.

"This paper describes the development and the implementation of process control in a variety of instruments used in metallurgical laboratories. These instruments are used for different research projects in extractive metallurgy. Hardware and software aspects for this implementation are described and analyzed. Extractive metallurgy applications where process control was .used are presented. IntroductionMicroprocessors are invading almost every area of our lives and are turning up in unexpected applications. A great deal of new equipment which is coming into the market have built- in microprocessor systems. Nevertheless, the area of upgrading existing processes has been slow to develop. There are a variety of reasons for this, and many of these are economic. One of the principal reasons, however, is the general reluctance on the part of many organizations to commit a strong effort to put this new technology into their existing processes.Microprocessor systems developed ""in lab"" are capable of not only measuring thermophysical events which are taking place in metallurgical furnaces, but simultaneously controlling these furnaces. In this paper software and hardware aspects in the implementation of microprocessor control for resistance and for induction furnaces are presented. In addition to this, metallurgical results are given from experiments where this furnace control was applied."

Jan 1, 1989

Jan 1, 1992

As a part of its overall wealth in fuel resources, the United States possesses large reserves of coal of ignite rank. According to recent estimates of the Federal Geological Survey (3, 5),l/ the assured lignite reserves of this country amount in total to over 463 billion tons, equivalent to 24 percent of our total national coal reserve on a tonnage basis and 15 percent on a heating-value basis. Distribution and relative amounts of United States coal and lignite reserves are indicated in figure 1. By far the largest proportion of our lignite reserves, over 95 percent is found in North Central States, principally in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana, in the vast coal-bearing structural grouping designated as the Fort Union formation. Of the remaining United States reserves, all but a fraction of 1 percent are found in a series of relatively scattered deposits in Texas.

Jan 1, 1954

By E. H. Burroughs

HISTORICAL REFERENCES OCCURRENCE-GEOLOGY AND ORIGIN. 4. ARNOLD, RALPH. Conservation of the oil and gas resources of the Americas, Econ. Geol., vol. 11, Apr.-May, 1916, pp. 203-222; June, 1916, pp. 299-326; Proc. 2nd Pan American Sci. Cong., 1915-1916, vol. 3, Conservation of natural resources, pp. 207-237. Shows occurrence of oll, and status and possibilities of oil Industry in each country. Discusses briefly ways in which oll reserves may be conserved. 5. RUTIS, A. A. Petroleum known since remote times. Oil and Gas Jour., vol. 15, Nov. 2, 1916, pp. 33, 37. Gives historical reférences to the use of petroleum from Bible times to its discovery In America. See also Nos. 3, 257, 202, 337, 1843.

Jan 1, 1919

By A. Monomakhoff

If a conductor traversed by an electric current is broken, a conduction forms in the air between the two broken ends of the wire. This conduction manifests itself in an initial phase by an electric spark and, in a second phase, by an arc if the the circuit continues to supply sufficient power. This arc goes out when the distance between the two ends of the conductor becomes sufficiently large. If the break occurs in an explosive atmosphere, the energy contributed by the arc can cause an explosion. To avoid such accidents, electric circuits that may be utilized in hazardous atmospheres can be made "intrinsically safe". The investigation which we conducted is part of a research project on the intrinsic safety of arcs of high intensity but short duration, in the case of resistive circuits. We developed an electronic system which makes it possible to limit the duration of an arc at the level of the break of a conductor traversed by a current with a possible maximum intensity of 80 amperes. This experimental device for monitoring and measuring the parameters of the arc has shown that arcs of high intensity but with a duration limited to a few microseconds do not ignite an explosive methane-air mixture.

Jan 1, 1975

This appendix contains the list of equipment, their corresponding number and their specifications with the quotations from the vendors/ manufacturers who can supply this equipment. The listings are arranged by process plant areas.

Jan 1, 1979

By E. W. Rouse

THE year 1936 has seen rehabilitation of many plants which had been closed or severely curtailed. The Steptoe smelter of the Nevada Consolidated Copper Co. has been transformed by a rearrangement of the flow of material and utilization of mechanical handling to a maximum. The Phelps Dodge Corp. reports the construction of newer and better reverberatories at the Copper Queen smelter, and of particular interest, a single high-pressure waste-heat boiler placed directly over the uptake. There has also been a complete reconstruction of the smelter at the Laurel Hill plant of the Nichols Copper Co.

Jan 1, 1937

By C. Velásquez, W. Bergholz, C. Spence, P. Lind

NuevaUnión SpA (NuevaUnión) is a development project located in the Huasco province of the Atacama region of Chile. It is held in a joint venture company owned 50:50 by Teck Resources Limited (Teck) and Newmont Goldcorp. It includes the Cu-Mo Relincho deposit and the Cu-Au La Fortuna deposit, with plans to utilise a single concentrator to be built at the Relincho site. The Relincho site is at an altitude of 2,000 masl and is 40 km from the La Fortuna site which is at an altitude of 4,100 masl. The project is currently completing a Feasibility Study and is reviewing equipment selection and flowsheet options. This paper is based on the current thinking, and design decisions will be finalized at the completion of the Feasibility Study. NuevaUnión is currently planning for phased operation, processing Relincho ore at 104 ktpd followed by processing ore from La Fortuna at 116 ktpd. Plans for the third phase include doubling the main processing lines and returning to Relincho ore at a processing rate of 208 ktpd. The NuevaUnión concentrator will incorporate comminution and flotation circuits that are being designed to maximize the overall economic value of the combined ore deposits. Major ore characteristics differ between the two ore bodies, such as ore competency, grindability, liberation grind size, pulp rheology, tailings properties, minerals and metals of value, as well as gangue mineralogy. Mineral processing choices have been made to optimise value from each deposit and the combined project. INTRODUCTION Between 2010 and 2013, two significant mining projects were being developed in Chile: Goldcorp’s El Morro project had recently finalized a Feasibility Study and, in 2011, had received its environmental approval for construction; and Teck Resources Limited’s (Teck) Relincho project was finalizing a Feasibility Study and preparing its Environmental Impact Study. Both projects were: Geographically close, at only 40 km apart. Considering similar infrastructure. Each was planning to have its own concentrator, tailings management facility, high voltage power line, port, concentrate transport system, seawater desalination plant and pumping system to mine site.

Jan 1, 2019

By C. B. Manula

Bituminous coal mining in the United States is currently experiencing a period of rapid growth which began in the early 1960's. Future demands are conservatively predicted to rise to 700 million tons by 1980 and to anywhere between 1 to 3 billion tons by the turn of the century. This means a continuous expansion of coal production by a factor of at least two can be expected before the end of the century. Over the last few years, production from underground mining has decreased; yet it is about 50% of the total coal output. In the absence of any discovery of near surface coal deposits, and even after conceding that some deeper deposits can be surface mined with changes in technology it can be reasonably assumed that coal production from underground will continue to play an important part in solving the energy crisis.

Jan 1, 1975

By R. L. Derick

On a regular basis, mine personnel should obtain air samples directly from active underground areas as well as remotely from sealed locations. These samples provide mine officials with data relative to the makeup of the various atmospheres. Should conditions underground change, these results can provide a baseline that can assist officials in determining the extent of change. Relating the concentrations of individual gases to time, applying gases to equations, and examining their change over time are tools that have been successfully used to determine if a heating event exists and, if so, the extent of the emergency. These atmospheric status equations have either been developed for the mining industry or adapted from other industries. They serve as tools to assist personnel in determining the condition of underground mine atmospheres. As long as the problem area continues to be ventilated, certain gases, gas ratios, and equations can be used to determine if a fire exists, what type of material could be burning, and what quantity of coal is burning. Once the mine or the involved section has been temporarily sealed, gases, ratios, and gas-derived equations can assist personnel in determining how conditions within the sealed volume are changing over time. To alleviate potential explosions when fresh air is once again introduced into the sealed volume, equations and a diagram have been developed to predict the likelihood of an explosive atmosphere. Similarly, prior to commencing recovery of a mine or section, equations exist that can assist in determining if the fire will rekindle when air is reintroduced. This paper serves as an overview to remind and/or instruct readers about gas-sampling methodologies and gas analyses to assist in determining the status of underground atmospheres.

Jan 1, 2006

By Michael W. Lewis

The latest downturn in the world’s metal prices has forced many mining companies to focus on cost reduction and productivity improvements to remain competitive. Maintenance represents a significant part of the overall operating costs in the mining industry. A structured, proactive maintenance approach, such as reliability-centered maintenance, can achieve cost reductions and productivity improvements. Remote condition-monitoring systems are becoming commonplace because they have the potential to identify problems before failure. Detection of equipment degradation before failure will enable repairs to be scheduled, thereby reducing costs and interruptions to production. The mining industry is in the midst of uncertain times. Decreasing commodity prices, demand, head grade and capital availability along with increasing environmental requirements have put pressure on mining companies to significantly reduce costs to maintain short- and long-term viability. Corporations are looking at expansion, merger/consolidation and financial/hedging programs to achieve these cost reductions. Mines are reducing costs by eliminating all but essential expenditures, increasing production levels, reducing overtime and investing in new technologies.

Jan 1, 2000