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The use of econometric models to assess the effects of a Government's policy on an industry is gaining momentum. This is particularly so for the Mineral Industry and it is important that mineral industry management understands the techniques involved in developing econometric models. Models are usually constructed outside the industry by either government departments or their consultants and used by the policy makers to investigate artificially the implementation and ramifications of new policies. This paper discusses the application of econometric models in Governmental policy determination, highlights the use of various models in Australia and gives an overview of the techniques involved using Australian examples.

Jan 1, 1982

Over the past 15 years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques have shown promise of providing the ability to capture `human intelligence' into a computer program. The sub-fields of Expert Systems and Artificial Neural Networks are finding increased use in industry to perform tasks previously considered the domain of human thinking. But, are these methods just a new type of software much like that of the past or is real magic hidden within the lines of code? Will this field continue to enjoy high growth rates and if so, what developments will we see in the near future? Which algorithms and methodologies will continue to grow? This paper discusses a number of paradigms which can be used to create successful applications. There are certain barriers; some psychological - some linked with knowledge acquisition, that must be overcome or avoided to ensure system performance. Development time also requires careful consideration before embarking on an Al project. The paper focusses on constructing goal-driven systems that transfer high-technology solutions from the research laboratory to the plant floor. Respect for system users is of paramount importance - whether their involvement is to access contained information or to participate in program maintenance as new knowledge becomes available. Examples of successful and unsuccessful AI implementation in Canadian industry and academia provide evidence of the importance of this issue. The paper also examines some current constraints on applying AI in the real-world. Among these problems are automated knowledge acquisition, methods to acquire data during run-time, real-time systems (hardware versus software), explanation and justification features and adaptive/leaning systems.

Jan 1, 1995

For many years the mining industry at Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia, was carried on with just sufficient attention to underground ventilation and hygiene conditions as to keep pace with necessity. However, the campaign against industrial diseases in other mining centres (notably South Africa) some years ago, brought the subject more prominently before local mining engineers.Throughout a period of several years, gradual improvement has been effected, and at the present time industrial hygiene is considered an essential part of the production operations of the various companies.In June, 1918, a move was first made by the Board of Trade advising an inquiry respecting the health of employees engaged in the metalliferous mining industry in the State of New South Wales. At the end of that year, a recommendation was made to the State Government by the Board of Trade that a Techni.cal Commission of Inquiry be appointed to examine and report upon the dust conditions of the metalliferous mines at Broken Hill. Following this a second report presented in 1919 made specific recommendations in respect to the scope of such a Commission. A Technical Commission of Inquiry was accordingly appointed and arrived in Broken Hill to inquire into the prevalence of miner's phthisis and pneumonoconiosis in the mines. Early in March, 1920, the examination of all mine employees commenced, and the work was completed in June, 1920. The full report of the activities of the Commission and the conclusions arrived at was officially published at a later date. Based on the recommendations...

Jan 1, 1940

By N Trabelsi, D Bakun-Mazor, Y Ben-Ari

As part of a comprehensive project to develop a remote sensing tool for evaluating the mechanical properties of rocks, one must obtain a rapid indication of these properties using conventional field methods. A common method for evaluating the mechanical properties of rocks in the field is to use a Schmidt hammer, a portable device that measures the rebound (R) of a spring-loaded mass impacting against the rock surface. Since the 1960s many studies have been made to find empirical correlations between the R value measured by the Schmidt hammer and mechanical and physical properties such as uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), elastic modulus, density, and porosity. Despite the existing correlations in the literature, this work is required to establish detailed empirical relationships for the carbonate rock units in Israel. To do so, 150 rock samples were collected from 38 different outcrops of carbonate rock units. In each outcrop, 20 impacts were made using a Schmidt hammer at different but adjacent points. The impacts were done horizontally perpendicular to the vertical rock walls. In the laboratory, we measured the density, effective porosity, water absorption, UCS, and elastic modulus. The rock samples we selected contained a wide range of UCS: from 7 to 270 MPa. Our empirical correlations indicate an exponential relationship between R and UCS and the elastic modulus, and linear relationships between R and density, porosity, and water absorbance. The most reliable index is the average of the five maximum impacts out of the 20 made in each rock outcrop. The correlation equations obtained from this work will make it possible to effectively evaluate the mechanical properties of the intact rock in the field, thereby aiding development of advanced tools for rock mass characterisation by means of remote sensing.

Nov 29, 2022

By B G. Blacka, O Salisbury, K W. Mills, R G. Jeffrey

Whitehaven Coal Limited operates an underground longwall mine near Narrabri, New South Wales. The mining horizon in the Hoskissons Seam is overlain by a 16–20 m thick unit known as the Digby Conglomerate, a unit that is sufficiently massive to have potential to cause a windblast during first caving at the start of each longwall panel and periodic weighting throughout the panel. A program of hydraulic fracturing has been successfully used to precondition the conglomerate strata to increase its caveability at the start of each panel. This paper presents a system of temperature monitoring that was used successfully to measure hydraulic fractures at Whitehaven confirming their rate of growth, orientation and interaction with previously placed hydraulic fractures.CITATION:Mills, K W, Blacka, B G, Jeffrey, R G and Salisbury, O, 2014. Temperature monitoring of hydraulic fractures used for preconditioning massive conglomerate strata to reduce windblast, in Proceedings AusRock 2014: Third Australasian Ground Control in Mining Conference , pp 189–194 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Nov 5, 2014

The Mammoth Copper Deposit consists of three distinct orebodies adjacent to the Mammoth Fault. This fault is arcuate, changing from a normal tension fault to a shear strike fault just to the north of the mine. Movement on the fault was probably contemporaneous with deposit- ion of the adjacent sediments. In the upper levels the No. 1 orebody occurs within a brecciated zone in the footwall of the fault, but at depth the No. 2 and 3 orebodies are stratabound by two brecciated lithologic horiz- ons. The host rocks are impure sandstones, arkoces and quartzites, which in the mine area are near the top of the Lower Proterozoic Myally Beds. Overlying these beds is a conglom- erate siltstone sequence which has been assumed to be the base of the Gunpowder Creek Formation. North and south of the mine the conglomerate rests on an erosional unconformity representing a major time break, but in the mine the uncon- formity and conditions of deposition of the conglomerate are obscure. Some mineralization is contained within the conglomerates. The sulphides present are chalcocite, bornite, chalcopyrite and pyrite. Chalcocite is dominant in the upper levels but could be en- riched by supergene processes. At depth, bornite becomes the dominant copper sulphide with lesser amounts of chalcopyrite, pyrite and primary chalcocite. Throughout the orebody minor digenite and covellite occur and arsenic is a minor constituent bound up with the pyrite. The bulk of the sulphides occur in stringers, fractures and breccia interstices but finer grained primary bedded sulphides can be observed. The genesis is probably a complex process in- volving active tectonic movements extending from deposition to post lithification giving numerous phases of brecciation and redistribut- Ion.

Jan 1, 1974

Mineral sands are being used as the source material for new "high-tech" engineering materials. One such material, Magnesia Partially Stabilized Zirconia (PSZ) has been developed and patented world-wide by CSIRO. Derived from zircon sands, the material is currently produced by Nilcra Ceramics in Australia and is exported world-wide.The properties of the material are contrary to those generally accepted for ceramics and are far more akin to those of steel. The material resists not only abrasive wear, impact and thermal shock, but does so under corrosive conditions that frequently cause early failure of metal and cemented carbide.While the consumption of mineral sands for the production of PSZ is not going to significantly increase the demand in the short term, the material itself may well assist the productivity and processing problems within the industry.

Jan 1, 1986

By McMullen P. H

Mining of copper ore at Mount Lyell has been continuous since 1893. The operation has always been marginal and the depressed copper Market over the last decade has seen mining continue on the basis of a series of short term plans. In 1985 it was determined that the mine would close in 1989 on completion of the 40 Series mining block. Significant changes in the value of the Australian dollar in 1986 and the subsequent effect on profitability dictated a review of the Company's operations. Lower level ore reserves, mining methods and ore handling systems were re-examined and a plan proposed for mining of the 50 and 60 Series mining blocks. The improved economics of this plan, together with workforce and State Government initiatives resulted in an extension of mine life to 1994.

Jan 1, 1988

By Gottlieb P, Sutherland DN

The paper describes a method of making quantitative mineralogical measurements on many of the major lead/zinc orebodies in Australia. The work was done using QEM*SEM. It was found that a relationship betwen phase-specific surface area and particle size, when plotted in a suitable way, gave a straight line with slope related to the grain size of the mineral in question. The method provides an excellent way of differen- tiating between minerals in existing orebodies and, consequently, an easy way to establish a comparison between a new prospect or orezone and current operations.

Jan 1, 1988

By Miskelly N

In Australia and New Zealand, the 'Australasian Code for Reporting of Identified Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves', which was released by industry in 1989, is operating successfully in a co-operative approach between industry and regulatory authorities. Similar codes or guidelines exist or are under development in the United States of America, Canada, the United Kingdom and South Africa, although the regulatory backing given to the Australasian Code is unique. International standard definitions for Mineral Resources and Reserves, and for categories of Resources and Reserves, have been under development by the Council of Mining and Metallurgical Institutions since 1994 and have already stimulated considerable convergence of definitions and reporting standards in participating countries. It is hoped that agreement on this international standard for public reporting by mining companies will be reached within the next two years, and it is expected that adoption of the standard will result in a higher and more uniform quality of reporting worldwide, with a consequently greater interest on the part of the general public and financiers in investing in the mining industry.

Jan 1, 1997

The series of events leading to the adoption of more complex flotation circuits for coal have been reviewed. In essence, it has been concluded that ac- ceptable overall flotation recovery will only be obtained when efficient distri- bution of collector over all the component feed size fractions is ensured. The achievement of this goal is most likely to be obtained by feed classification and separate flotation of appropriate size fractions. The adoption of such a phil- osophy, however, imposes a number of process problems of both a chemical and an engineering nature. Some of these problems have been identified and possible solutions discussed. A case is emerging for the development of a new generation of flotation cells designed specifically for the flotation of classified coal and for the development of a series of novel re- agents which have the propensity to float middling particles.

Jan 1, 1984

By Kellerwessel H, Oberheuser

Since its invention by Professor Klaus Schonert of the University of Clausthal, Germany, high pressure rolls comminution has attained near total acceptance as the preferred method of size reduction in the cement industry. Over 300 units have been manufactured worldwide. At locations where the system has been installed, considerable energy savings have been realised. These energy savings are generally in the range of 20 to 30 per cent compared to conventional ball mill circuits. However up to 50 per cent power saving has been achieved at some installations. This technology, with the exception of the diamond industry, has up to now had only limited success in ore processing. This has mainly been attributable to the abrasiveness of ores encountered in this industry leading to high wear rates. These high wear rates have given rise to an unacceptably short life time of the wear surface of the rolls, requiring regular replacement. A new wear surface has been developed which has shown to give a ten-fold increase in service life over conventional surfaces. This, together with developments made in machine design now give the units the ability to attain the high availabilities demanded by the mining industry, and therefore to allow this industry to achieve the considerable operating cost savings offered by the high pressure rolls.

Jan 1, 1992

On the 17th November, 1964, a new No., 2 lead blast furnace was blown in at Port Pirie. The furnace departed from previous designs by incorporating a centrally located continuous tapper for both lead bullion and slag. The use of a central tapper permitted a simple and effective layout for the handling of both products. Considerable development was necessary to bring the furnace to its present level of efficiency. Units vital to the continu- ous operation were developed to allow quick replacement, thus ensuring high time efficiency under varied operating and maintenance conditions. The furnace was designed with the following objectives in mind, 1. increased crucible life, 2. elimination of oxygen for slag tapping, 3. higher temperature slag for fuming operations-, 4. less operator skill needed, 5. reduced tapping tool consumption, 6. elimination of settler skull and scrap lead, 7. better control of blast air distributi.nn. And

Jan 1, 1975

By Sorokin M. L, Komkov A. A

Flash smelting of nickel sulphide concentrate has been practiced at WMC's Kalgoorlie Nickel Smelter for 20 years. The mineralogy of the concentrate from the original mines was particularly suited to this process. However, taking a strategic view, potential new processing routes should be fully evaluated as possible replacements for the current technology. The Vanyukov process has been under development in Russia for the past 40 years and has been successfully applied on a large scale to the smelting of copper concentrates, at two locations - Norilsk and Balkhash. The potential for the application of the Vanyukov process to the smelting of nickel concentrates offers a number of processing advantages, including smaller reactor and decreased dependence on fuel oil. This paper reports on preliminary investigations into the application of the Vanyukov process to the smelting of nickel concentrates. At this stage the investigations are limited to semi-quantitative comparisons and modelling studies.

Jan 1, 1992

The smelting operation associated with the production of aluminium has a voracious appetite for high grade carbon materials. Within the technical parameters of the Hall-Heroult process, the reduction of alumina to one tonne of aluminium results in the consumption of nearly 0.5 tonne of carbon at the anode of an electrolytic cell. This paper reviews the role of carbon and the basic quality requirements of carbon products in the production of aluminium, discusses the effects of certain physical and chemical specifications on smelting and related operations, and examines recent trends in the quality of these raw materials.

Jan 1, 1977

By L Huang

"Successful rehabilitation of tailings landforms of tens to thousands of hectares in size at base metal mines is critical to mining companies’ ‘social licence to operate’. Rehabilitation technology used is closely related to both the economic sustainability of the mining company and the ecological sustainability of the mined environment. Conventional technology to rehabilitate mine waste landforms is costly and constrained by the availability of soil (to reconstruct root zones) and clay materials (to reconstruct compressed layer). Depending on mine waste properties and site-specific resource availability, it is not uncommon to cost A$0.1–0.5 M/ha for the establishment of conventional cover systems over mine waste domains, which often accounts for large proportion of the total closure costs. This can lead to costs approaching several hundred millions dollars for rehabilitating larger tailings and acidic waste rock using conventional cover systems.The present extended abstract proposes a suite of new technologies to tackle the problems outlined above and discusses critical factors in successful rehabilitation from substrate levels to the whole landform performance, in two key aspects:in situ engineering of tailings soil to offset/reduce materials requiredin situ chemical engineering of massive hardpan layer through alkali-activation and mineral gel cross-linking network mechanisms to encapsulate reactive tailings and achieving sustainable hydro-geochemical stability in root zones.This aims at functionally replacing the roles of the compressed clay layer and capillary breaks in conventional covers. These technologies would improve both the economic and ecological sustainability of mine waste rehabilitation, thus addressing the triple-bottom line of mining and mineral processing industries not only in Australia but other countries.CITATION:Huang, L, 2016. Emerging technology for economic and ecological sustainability in the rehabilitation of metal mine tailings, in Proceedings Life-of-Mine 2016 Conference, pp 128–131 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne)."

Jun 28, 2016

Some mqre facts and inferences are presented in amplification of a recent paper on the geology of the Kalgoorlie Golden Mile stressing the volcanic origin of its rich gold ores, some of which are considered tobe exhalites. Previously unpublished and largely unmapped pyroclastic features in carbonated and chloritized, but not in amphibolitic, country rock are brought to attention. This applies particularly to the main host, viz. the relatively coarse-grained quartz dolerite greenstone (Q. D. G.), i.e. Golden Mile Dolerite, and gives more credibility to the spatial association of the rich Green Leader and telluride ores with bodies of sediments and tuffites occurring within, or adjacent to, Q. D. G. There may be an intrusive relationship with contiguous mafic amphibolites of doleritic origin, but this is not certain and can only be resolved by morecomprehensive mapping than in the past. Volcanic features have always been recognized in CalC Schist, i.e. Paringa Basalt, more so recently in the shape of coarse volcanic breccia.Iu the subsequent deformation of the gold ores since their inital emplacement there appears to be a structural parallel with some Canadian base-metal deposits, most of them of volcanogenic origin.

Jan 1, 1976

By Baguley PJ, Napier-Munn TJ

This paper presents preliminary resu]ts from field studies which were conducted to establish, among other things. the influence of medium viscosity on the partitioning behaviour of dense medium cyclones and drums in mineral applications, using frrrosilicon- ba_sed media. The medium vicoosit.y- was measured on-line, and partitioning behaviour was determined using ore sampling and density t r acers . The results demonstrate that viscosity is an important. operating variable, influencing ,eparat.ing density and efficiency under certain conditions. The implication is that metallurgical performance can be optimised by manipulating viscosity, either by appropriate selection of medium' characteristics or by automatic alarming and/or "ontroi using signals from the on- 1. i ne viscometer.

Jan 1, 1987

By L C. Thompson

BioLix is the term for a new class of biologically-derived lixiviants for precious metals (gold and silver) recovery. BioLix can be used as an alternative to cyanide on virgin and spent ores. The BioLix process is based on inducing microbial enzymatic reactions that generate organo-lixiviant chemicals. The bioprocess involves a two-stage culture strategy. First, specialty microorganisms are cultured to generate a high biomass. Then, a food-grade quality amendment is introduced that forces the microorganisms to produce the organo-lixiviant. The second-stage culture is applied to the ore where the microbial/lixiviant system acts on mineral surfaces to extract precious metals. The process operates at ambient temperatures and near neutral pH. This paper will examine the BioLix process through an extensive laboratory development and demonstration project. Laboratory development consisted of identifying and isolating specialty microorganisms and inducing agents for the production of the organo-lixiviant solutions. A demonstration was performed on low-grade and high-grade oxidised ore from the Buffalo Valley mine in Nevada, USA. Results indicate that the BioLix process was comparable to cyanide in terms of gold recovery and operated at near neutral pH and ambient temperatures. Applications for the BioLix process will be discussed including spent-ore re-leaching, cyanide replacement for virgin ore, and in situ mining.

Jan 1, 2004

By C Rogers

"The Coal Seam Gas (CSG) industry has seen a rapid increase in activity over a 30-year periodfrom the early 1990s within Australia. Despite public concerns over environmental issues, theCSG industry has increased in Queensland to the point where more than 90 per cent of naturalgas consumed in Queensland is CSG. The New South Wales (NSW) CSG industry has been slowerto respond for many reasons. Ninety-five per cent of natural gas consumed in NSW comes frominterstate. However, CSG activity in New South Wales is increasing notwithstanding publicconcerns. The CSG potential of three Petroleum Exploration Licenses (PELs) are being assessedwithin the Southern Sydney Basin that provides a unique opportunity to develop resourcesstrategically around many abandoned coal mines. The question has been asked - what do theseabandoned coal mines mean to the project? Are they good or bad? Are they friend or foe? Thispaper att empts to answer these questions and in doing so describes the coal mine ventilation andgas management philosophies and practices used to assess gas production potential. The coalmining philosophies not only have the potential to assist in the construction of a highly successfulCSG project, but they also potentially add signifi cant pre production value by re defi ning how theresources and reserves are assessed and therefore valued. The behaviour of abandoned coal minesand the goaves within the PELs are not well understood by the petroleum industry. However, in the Illawarra region there is an abundance of coal mining knowledge and expertise that if properly focused can greatly increase the chances of project success."

Jun 1, 2012