Search Documents

By Steve Meador

West Virginia's basic coal mining regulatory programs are not unique when compared to Federally approved programs implemented by other coal producing states. In fact, the language in The West Virginia Energy Act governing subsidence mirrors that written in the Federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act as well as other states' statutes. Certain legal and administrative issues, how¬ever, combine to make West Virginia's regulation of surface subsidence a singular approach.

Jan 1, 1986

By Neil D. Donnell, O&apos

Ore reserve estimation at the Syncrude Canada Ltd. open-pit oil sands mine in Northern Alberta has evolved since the project's inception. Early techniques followed a conventional petroleum reservoir analysis format, with relatively widely-spaced drill holes and semiquantitative grade data. Experience has developed a more standard mining approach, including classification of geological materials by both lithology and sedimentary origin, timely and multi-purpose drill holes, precise analytical data, empirical recovery factors, a computerized geological data base, and an ore body block model. Future efforts will involve enhancement of existing techniques, use of geostatistical algorithms, quantification of confidence limits, and improved control of the ore model by geological parameters.

Jan 1, 1985

By A. Davis, C. Webb, J. Sorensen

The abandoned Belle Eldridge Mine near Deadwood, South Dakota, is on land controlled by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The mine produced lead and zinc during the first half of the 1900s. Because of acidic drainage and elevated levels of metals in tailings and waste rock, the site was evaluated in 1998 and 1999. After evaluation, the mine was remediated during 1999-2001 by the BLM. Since remediation, values of pH in water samples have been nearly neutral and specific conductance values have been much lower than before remediation. The Grizzly Gulch forest fire of July, 2002, consumed much of the Belle Eldridge site and resulted in greater than normal erosion and sediment flushing during the months following the wildfire. Had the site not been remediated and the tailings emplaced within a capped repository, generation of acidity and off-site migration of heavy metals within sediments could have been severe at downstream locations.

Jan 1, 2007

By Eduardo M. Sacris

The performance of the grinding circuit, from the initial stages of operation to the present, is discussed. The mill efficiency as measured by the Bond grindability data and the operating work index is presented. The objective has been to produce a sand cyclone overflow containing not more than 6% +65 mesh. However, this has never been attained even at low milling rates. On the other hand, significant improvements in throughput were achieved by instituting some equipment changes and process modifications within the grinding circuit. The latest approach to solving the coarse grind problem is also discussed.

Jan 1, 1983

By C. O. Lee

The Grand Isle Sulphur Mine is located in the Gulf of Mexico, approximately seven miles off the coast of Grand Isle, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. The depth of water at this location is about 50 feet. The deposit is on acreage covered by oil, gas, and mineral leases which were originally issued in favor of Humble Oil & Refining Company by the State of Louisiana, and which were continued, maintained, and redesignated by the Department of the Interior of the United States, pursuant to Section 6(b) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. On September 19, 1956, Freeport Sulphur Company acquired from Humble Oil & Refining Company the sulphur rights underlying the tracts. This assignment was approved by the Secretary of the Interior on July 12, 1957. The Director, United States Geological Survey, approved Freeport Sulphur Company as Operator on July 31, 1957. Actual design began in September 1956; the first structural contract was let December 15, 1957, and offshore erection began in June 1958. The initial phase of construction will be completed and production started in early 1960. The estimated total cost of the project is $30,- 000,000, of which $8,000,000 is the extra cost for being in the Gulf of Mexico.

Jan 1, 1959

By Adabala Raja Venkata Sai Naresh, Radhakanta Koner

Particle size distribution (PSD) is an essential parameter in assessing the overall efficiency of blasting operations in mines and the subsequent mine-to-mill process in the mining industry. Despite some drawbacks of 2D image analysis techniques in accurately estimating particle sizes in PSD, the mining industry has relied on them for the last three decades. This study proposes the 3D rock fragmentation measurement (3DFM) technique for deducting the accurate dimensions of 3D rock particles for the PSD. 3DFM has utilized different processing algorithms. Images of different views of the non-touching rock particles of varying sizes have been acquired as a data acquisition step of structure from motion technology for generating sparse point cloud. Dense point cloud reconstruction is used to avail finer details of the point cloud using clustering views for the multi-view stereo algorithm. Random sample consensus (RANSAC) algorithm coupled with an unsupervised classification using the density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN) classifier is employed to extract the rock clusters from the 3D point cloud. Finally, the accurate rock sizes are derived using the hybrid bounding box rotation identification (HYBBRID) algorithm with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.10 cm for length, 0.10 cm for breadth, and 0.32 cm for depth. The PSD of rock fragments obtained from the proposed 3DFM technique is found to be matching with the results of mechanical sieving and manual gauging with an R2 values of 0.98 and 0.99, respectively. The 3DFM method can be considered cheaper, more accurate, and computationally faster in determining the rock dimensions for the PSD determination method to enhance the productivity of the mining industry.

Dec 29, 2023

By L. Harris

The gold mining and ore processing operations of Minera Yanacocha S.A. are 10cated in an area 4,000 meters above sea level in the Peruvian Andes same 600 km north of Lima and 20 km north of Cajamarca. The joint venture partners are Newmont Second Capital (USA); Compania Minera Condesa (Peril); Mine Or (France) and the IFC. Newmont manages the operation. The Yanacocha district comprises several areas with mineralization evidence. The first ore with minable reserves of 28 million tonnes of ore assaying about 1.4 gpt Au is called Carachugo and is being mined and treated at the rate of 14,000 tonnes of ore per day by open pit mining methods. ROM ore is dump leached and the gold recovered in a Merrill Crowe plant. The plant design incorporates some unusual considerations to overcome the problems of the high rainfall in this area and assure the protection of the environment.

Jan 1, 1994

By C. C. Clark, P. W. Patton, B. M. Stewart

Handling materials in underground mines continues to be a major safety problem. To help reduce materials-handling injuries, researchers at the Spokane Research Laboratory of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health are investigating those materials-handling tasks in underground mines that appear to generate a high number of injuries. Data from the Mine Safety and Health Administration for the years 1989-1999 were studied to find out if there were any trends in materials-handling accidents and if so, to determine what tasks were involved and the sources of injuries. Several underground coal and metal mines were visited to document innovative materials-handling technologies. Considerations for safety training and mechanization needs for continued reduction in materials-handling injuries are described.

Jan 1, 2002

By S. Jennings

The Red Dog zinc-lead-silver deposit is located in the DeLong Mountains of the western Brooks Range in northwest Alaska. The region is located 145 km(90 miles) north of the village of Kotzebue (Fig. 1).Red Dog’s current resource base is 143 Mt (157 million st) averaging 16.1% zinc, 4.3% lead and 83g/t (2.4 oz/st) silver. It is contained in four structurally separate deposits— the Hilltop, Main Deposit, Aqqaluk and the newly discovered Paalaaq deposit. Recent exploration for the Aqqaluk and the Paalaaq deposits has contributed to Cominco American’s understanding of the detailed structural geology of the district and its role in the placement of individual ore bodies.

Jan 1, 1999

By A. Robles-Vega

In recent years, tellurium has been extensively used in the manufacture of semiconductor materials. For this type of application, high-purity tellurium is required. Selenium, lead and silicon are usually the main impurities in tellurium. During the electrolytic refining of copper, tellurium gold and silver are collected in the anode slimes. A pyrometallurgical treatment is used to recover gold and silver from the decopperized anode slimes whereas tellurium is oxidized and skimmed off from the refining furnace as a Na2CO3-based slag. In the slag, tellurium is present as sodium tellurite (Na2TeO3), which is further water-leached from the slag. The first step in the conventional process for tellurium recovery consists of the precipitation of the tellurium contained in the leaching solution as tellurium dioxide (TeO2). The solid TeO2 is then dissolved under acidic conditions for its further reduction with sulfur dioxide gas (SO2). In this paper, an alternative route for tellurium production is presented in which a sodium tellurate [Na2TeO4] intermediate is obtained by oxidation of the sodium tellurite in an alkaline solution following the water leaching step. Sodium tellurate is then dissolved in acid media and high-purity tellurium is obtained by reduction with SO2 gas. Experimental tests under laboratory conditions indicate that the novel process yields higher precipitation selectivity for tellurium than the conventional process. A comparison of its efficiency concerning impurities co-precipitation with respect to the conventional process is discussed.

Jan 1, 2009

China has made great progress in thick coal seam mining, commonly characterized by longwall top-coal caving mining and single-pass longwall mining with a large cutting height. At present, the maximum mining thickness of longwall top-coal caving reaches 20 m while that of single-pass longwall mining approaches 8.8 m. The top-coal caving–related technologies have significantly improved the mining efficiency of thick coal seams and have also made a great contribution to the centralized underground mining of coal. Thus, the number of underground coal mines is greatly reduced in China. However, due to the increase of the mining height and the changes in mining operations, the overburden movement caused by the mining of thick coal seams is more intense, and the influence scope is larger, which brings a series of new problems on ground control of longwall faces. In order to enhance ground control and improve the mining efficiency of thick coal seams

Jul 28, 2020

By J. M. King

A crucial step in the acquisition by one company of the assets of another, the acquisition of the stock of another company, or the merger of two com-ponies, is the legal due diligence which needs to be performed in order for the acquirer to ascertain or confirm the obligations, liabilities and exposures to risk that are being assumed along with the assets or corporate stock being acquired. Where the obligations, liabilities, or exposures to risk arise from existing contracts, or from pending lawsuits, administrative proceedings, or threats of these actions, those matters are relatively straightforward to discover by careful review of the files of the party whose assets or stock is being acquired. However, where a company is engaged in ongoing mining or processing operations and has operated or owned mining proper-. ties, there are many sources of liability and exposure to risk which could have major adverse economic consequences to the acquiring party and which are not revealed, or at least are not clearly delineated, by the records of the company whose stock or assets are being acquired.

Jan 1, 1990

Semisoluble salt minerals are characterized by their ionic bonding and are distinguished from soluble salt minerals by their limited solubility in water. One group of semisoluble salt minerals being considered is the alkaline earth salt minerals, including fluorite (CaF2), calcite (CaCO3) and apatite (Ca5F (PO4)3), as well as celestite (SrSO4) and barite (BaSO4). Another group of semisoluble salt minerals being considered is the rare-earth salts, which include bastnaesite ((Ce, La) CO3F), monazite (CePO4) and xenotime (YPO4). Surface chemistry features of these selected semisoluble salt minerals are discussed with respect to flotation separations. First, the surface chemistry features of alkaline earth semisoluble salt minerals are reviewed, and then the surface chemistry features of rare-earth semisoluble salt minerals are examined. The discussion includes electrokinetic behavior, wetting characteristics and collector adsorption.

By Brain E. Gombos

The Allen Park Sanitary Sewer Overflow (SSO) Tunnel and relief sewer project, located in the city of Allen Park, MI, is a long-term corrective action designed to bring Sanitary District One?s sanitary system into compliance with its 2005 consent order and service contract with the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD). The $20 million project is intended to reduce Allen Park?s wet weather discharges to DWSD, reduce bypass pumping to the Ecorse Creek and limit the future risk of basement flooding by providing storage during wet weather events and eliminating hydraulic bottlenecks in the sanitary sewer system.

Jan 1, 2013

By N. Damiano, C. Zhou, B. Whisner, M. Reyes

"The industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)—a concept that combines sensor networks and control systems—has been employed in several industries to improve productivity and safety. NIOSH researchers are investigating IIoT applications to identify challenges of and potential solutions for transferability of IIoT from other industries to the mining industry. Specifically, NIOSH has reviewed existing sensors and communications network systems used in U.S. underground coal mines to determine whether they are capable of supporting IIoT systems. The results show that about 40% of the installed post-accident communication systems as of 2014 require minimal or no modification to support IIoT applications. NIOSH researchers also developed an IIoT monitoring and control prototype system based on low-cost microcontroller Wi-Fi boards, to detect a door opening on a refuge alternative, activate fans located inside the Pittsburgh Experimental Mine, and actuate an alarm beacon on the surface. The results of this feasibility study can be used to explore IIoT applications in underground coal mines based on existing communications and tracking infrastructure. INTRODUCTION The nation’s approach to health and safety in mining has historically been reactive in the sense that health and safety regulations and mandates have traditionally been passed as a result of tragic mining accidents. An example of this is the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act (MINER Act) of 2006, which was passed as a result of several mining accidents where tracking of and communications with underground personnel were severely limited. While this reactive approach has led to the development and implementation of highly impactful safety interventions and safety practices, there currently exists a technological revolution that can shift the paradigm toward a proactive approach based on preventative methods: Internet of Things (IoT). IoT is the network of physical objects or ""things"" embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and connectivity to enable that network to achieve greater value and service by exchanging data with the manufacturer, operator, and/or other connected devices [1, 2]. It should be noted that IoT has been defined from various perspectives, and hence numerous definitions exist in the literature. The apparent ambiguity of the IoT definition might be due to the fact that IoT is syntactically composed of two terms: internet and things. The first one pushes towards a network-oriented vision, while the second tends to put the focus on generic objects. The traditional internet can be viewed as an internet of computers —i.e., “things” connected to the internet are computers only. IoT “extends” the internet by allowing other generic things that are commonly found in our daily life, such as refrigerators and cars, to be interconnected via the internet, and thus creates a bridge between the virtual word and the physical world."

Jan 1, 2017

By Gary E. Slagel

The year was 1974. The event - the United States Congress was embroiled over what issues should be included in the proposed national surface mining law. The question - what should be done with underground mines? The leading bills ultimately addressed the environmental impacts associated with underground mines including provisions to protect the surface from subsidence impacts. Amid the fears that this subsidence language might discourage underground mining, sponsors of the bill were asked to explain the meaning of the provision that read "to prevent subsidence to the extent technologically and economically feasible." Was this an attempt to limit mining that caused planned and controlled subsidence? Former Deputy Director of the Office of Surface Mining, Dean Hunt, reviewed some of these historical events in a 1985 presentation before the Eastern Mineral Law Foundation. He reported that in 1974 Congressman Morris Udall took the floor to respond to these concerns expressed by other members of Congress and the industry. Mr. Hunt cited Congressman Udall's July 10, 1974 Congressional Record statement: "The House bill contemplates rules 'to prevent subsidence to the extent technologically and economically feasible.' The word prevent led to fears expressed by the Secretary of the Interior Morton, that the effect would be to outlaw longwall mining, with its obvious subsidence ... in fact the bill's sponsors consider longwall mining ecologically preferable and it and other methods of controlled subsidence are explicitly endorsed." Further, the report that accompanied the front-running bill, HR11500, provided the following clarification on the issue of subsidence prevention: "It is the intent of this section to provide the Secretary with the authority to require the design and conduct of underground mining methods to control subsidence to the extent technologically and economically feasible in order to protect the value and use of surface lands. Some of the measures available for subsidence control include: (1) leaving sufficient original mineral for support; (2) refraining from mining under certain areas---or (3) causing subsidence to occur at a predictable time and in a relatively uniform and predictable manner. This specifically allows for the uses of longwall and other mining techniques which completely remove the coal." It is clear from the preceding statements that Congress considered the removal of all the coal and causing subsidence in a predictable and uniform manner to be equal to or better than leaving support coal and causing no subsidence. While the actual provision in the bills talked of preventing subsidence, a subsequent exception made it clear that the real intent was to control it. This is evidenced in the specific planned subsidence language that appeared in the bills and ultimately in Section 516 (b) (1) of PL95-87, the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. It reads: "...adopt measures...to prevent subsidence ... except in those instances where the mining technology used requires planned subsidence in a predictable and controlled manner..." In spite of this historic record that supports controlled subsidence, something has been lost in the implementation. The primary focus by many regulators over the past few years has been on the "prevent" aspect irrespective of mining method being used. This has appeared to change the original intent of Congress from one of controlling subsidence to one of minimizing damage. The objective of this report is to review some of the current regulatory issues that impede full extraction mining and offer some suggestions on possible ways to deal with these issues.

Jan 1, 1986

By Y. A. Attia, M. Elzeky

Thiobacillus ferrooxidans bacteria were used in this work to study the effect of bacterial adaptation on the bioleaching of three iron-bearing sulfide minerals, namely, pyrite, chalcopyrite and arsenopyrite. The change in the pH during the bioleaching process was observed and the mechanism of the bacterial action were discussed. It was found that bacterial adaptation prior to bioleaching, enhanced the degree of sulfide leaching by 2-4 folds over that of non-adapted bacteria. A1 so the bacterial activity was enhanced by 2-4.8 folds. The pH of leaching solutions was decreased by the increase in both adaptation period and bioleaching time. It was also concluded that the mechanisms of bioleaching of iron-bearing sulfide minerals involved both the direct and indirect bacterial action simultaneously.

Jan 1, 1989

By S. E. Phillipson

During the course of evaluations by the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s Roof Control Division, the controls on ground instability were investigated at surface and underground limestone mines throughout the eastern and southern United States. Structural geologic features, including joints and faults, were identified by basic geologic mapping as primary controls on highwall and back instability in surface and underground limestone mines. By comparing the spatial orientation of discontinuities and internal angle of friction with the orientation of highwalls on a stereonet, the potential for sliding, toppling, and raveling failures was evaluated in a semi-quantitative fashion. Structural geologic mapping identified faults and joints, which dismembered the back and were associated with ground instability, in underground mines. This paper documents the importance of recognizing structural geologic controls on ground stability in limestone mines, advocates basic geologic mapping as a critical component of ground control programs at surface and underground limestone mines, and provides examples of simple stability evaluations using the stereonet method.

Jan 1, 2006

By H. Lowers, P. Hageman, S. Diehl, D. Fey

Understanding relationships between mineralogy, texture, microstructural features, and element distribution and residence in minerals, is critical for accurate modeling of mineral weathering in waste-rock piles. The morphology of minerals and deformation structures, such as veins and faults, are important factors that control: (1) fluid access to the mineral surface to initiate dissolution, (2) the distribution of trace elements, and (3) formation of secondary minerals. We characterized the mineralogy, textures, and chemical properties of waste-rock material at three sites at scales ranging from outcrop to micrometer scale. A comprehensive hand-sample to thin-section scale methodology utilizing light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, electron microprobe, and laser ablation ICP-MS was used to thoroughly characterize the waste-rock material.

Jan 1, 2007

By Abegail Endraca, Allan Sebastian, Andrew Raine, Allan Patdu

The project involves the construction of a new aqueduct tunnel by an Earth Pressure Balance TBM tunnel for the Novaliches-Balara Aqueduct No 4 (NBAQ4) project in Metro Manila. It comprises a 7.3 km long and 3.1 m internal diameter tunnel that can deliver up to 1,000 MLD of raw water and the tunnel passes under urban residential and urban populated areas adjacent to and along Commonwealth Avenue. A new reservoir intake structure was constructed in the La Mesa reservoir by a cofferdam and the TBM breakthrough connected the reservoir to the outlet surge shaft structure and the downstream pipe network system connecting to the Balara Water Treatment Plant. The TBM incorporated a double articulated head configuration to allow tight 80 m radius curves to navigate some of the difficult alignment considerations. The alignment passed very close to some existing foundations for MRT7 and needed to clear several tight curves to remain within government land ownership. The project excavated through the local Guadalupe weak rock formations and there was minimal ground movements observed as a result of the work.

Jun 13, 2023