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By Charles A. Taschereau

Burkina Faso ? Formerly known as Upper Volta; Country is landlocked and dry (Sahel sub-Sahara zone); ? Among poorest countries in the World, according to the United Nations Human Development Index (in 2005, 178 out of 179 countries; in 2009 173 out of 179); ? Population 13,9 Millions; Life expectancy is 51.4 years; Fertility rate 6.47 children/woman; Average age is16 years; literacy rate 23.6% and GDP per capita $1,213; ? French is official language; Politically stable country; very low criminality rate; corruption level low. Multiparty elections since early 90s; Legal and political systembased on French civil law system; ? Country just opened a few years ago to International mining companies, with a new mining code and investment code; ? No experienced labour; ? All new codes and laws; no established practices; Very limited economic development, mining is already main product of exportation and the country will become with Essakane a mineral economy (over 50% of total exports from mineral sources);

May 1, 2010

By J. R. Giegerich

Purpose It is the purpose of this paper to describe the application of underground conveyor systems to the transportation of ore in the Sullivan mine of The Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of "Canada, Limited, at Kimberley, British Columbia. General Applications Conveying has been recognized as a means of underground transportation for a great number of years but only during the past fifteen to twenty years has there been any extended application of the method to underground metal-mine operations. Coal miners became conveyor conscious before metal miners. Probably one reason for this is the fact that there are more flat coal seams than flat orebodies. A second reason is that coal is light and is a less abrasive material than most metallic ores. The vast improvements made in belt construction during the past few years, together with improvements in mechanical conveyor equipment, have gone a long way in making this form of transportation attractive to the metal miner. In new mines being opened today, or in major extensions to older mines, the possibilities of conveyor transportation should receive serious consideration. There may not be any widespread application of the belt conveyor as a replacement for the conventional hoisting and locomotive haulage. Where there is an application, tl1e saving in cost can be appreciable and many operating ad-vantages gained because of ease in operation.

Jan 1, 1951

By P. E. Weidmark

Allard, M., Hucka, V.J., Das, B., and Borchtch-Komponietz, V.I., "Investigation of seismic vibration due to large blasts in Gaspe Copper Mines"; (in Russ); The Industry of Chemical Raw Materials; Referativnyi sbornik; 5:18-20: 1978. Askew, J., McCarthy, P.L. , and Fitzgerald, D.J ., "Backfill research for pillar extraction at ZC/NBHC"; Mining with Backfill; Proc 12th Cdn Rock Mech Symp; May 23-25, 1978; Sudbury; CIM Spec Vol 19:100-lJO; 1978. Barrett, J.R., Coulthard, M.A., and Dight, P.M., "Determination of fill stability" ; Mining with Backfill; Proc 12th Cdn Rock Symp; May 23-25, 1978; Sudbury; CIM Spec Vol 19:85-91; 1978.

Jan 1, 1979

By W. N. Wallinger

The mine and concentrator of Cyprus Anvil Mining Corporation are situated in south-central Yukon, some 120 miles north of Whitehorse. The large lead-zinc concentrator employs conventional crushing and grinding , followed by differential flotation, to produce selective lead and zinc concentrates, as well as a mixed lead-zinc (bulk) concentrate. Since the commencement of operations in 1969, the concentrator has undergone expansions and modifications which have increased the capacity to 10,000 tons per day, and afforded some metallurgical improvements.

Jan 1, 1978

By Hugh M. Roberts

DEVELOPMENT at Steep Rock lake has given rise to renewed interest in the geology of the iron ore deposits in the Lake Superior Region and has implications of no small moment bearing upon methods of exploration in the Precambrian Shield generally. Following upon the Regional Lake Superior meeting of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers in August, 1941, the authors prepared a paper on the Steep Rock deposits, which appeared in the A.I.M.E. publication, Mining Technology, for January, 1943. Between Januar7 and April, 1943, exploration at Steep Rock was continued by means o vertical, Mesabi-type churn-drill holes put down from the ice. This drilling has enlarged the tonnage of ore previously known and has disclosed further facts relating to the origin of the ore. The added evidence, we believe, goes to support the hypothesis that the deposits were formed by a process of replacement due to upward-moving, iron-bearing solutions which came in as igneous after-effects. Accordingly, in presenting the subject to the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, it seems best not to change our first explanation, but to prefix the original paper with an interpretation of the results of the more recent explorations completed after its publication.

Jan 1, 1943

By A. M. Bell

General Summary THIS paper attempts to describe in a preliminary and general manner the nature of certain copper discoveries now being developed by Gaspe Copper Mines, Limited, in Holland township, in the interior of the Gaspe peninsula. Some copper mineralization appears to have been known here at the time of the earliest French explorations, was rediscovered in 1921, and has been under intermittent development by Noranda Mines since 1938. In the last two years discoveries have enhanced the picture so that the deposit now promises to develop into one of the important Canadian copper producers. As ideas are constantly changing with continuing development, any picture given now is very partial and tentative and must be subject to future revision. The nature of these copper occurrences differs from others known in eastern America. In many respects they have unique features but they are most closely akin to some copper deposits found away from the intrusive rocks in the porphyry copper districts of the western United States. The most important orebodies are replacement deposits in a limestone horizon in which the ore gangue is converted to skarn. These lie at considerable distances from any known intrusive but seem to have been derived from a buried stock of granite that intrudes the sedimentary rocks of Lower Devonian age. This intrusive has produced alteration effects in the overlying rocks that may afford a key to locating other ore areas in the Peninsula.

Jan 1, 1951

By J. C. Gilbert

"IntroductionTHE PURPOSE of this paper is to discuss in a general way the heavy oil situation in Western Canada, and particularly to acquaint those in the oil industry who have not participated in the heavy oil end of the business with past and current developments. The author has covered •briefly the location of the heavy •and asphalt-base oil fields, their geology, current drilling and production practice, the location of the •refineries capable of handling heavy crude, their products and markets, and the problems and future prospects of the industry.Location and Description of FieldsThe term heavy oil is generally used to denote crude of 20.9° gravity and under. Since the products from heavy oil are also to a lesser extent obtained from asphalt-base crudes of higher gravity, some mention will be made here of the latter; but in general the emphasis of the paper is on heavy oil as such.In the order of their production to date, the heavy oil fields and those light oil fields which produce asphalt-base crudes are : Lloydminster, Taber, Vermilion, Conrad, Princess, and Wainwright.The Lloydminster oil field has not only produced most of the heavy oil, but also is currently the largest producer, supplying at the present time about 80 per cent of the heavy and asphalt-base crudes produced in Western Canada."

Jan 1, 1952

By Y. Guglielmi, C. Gout, P. Henry, P. Dick, C. Nussbaum

For a decade, observations and experiments conducted in underground environments worldwide (mines, underground research laboratories - URL) made it possible to bridge the scale gap between laboratory scale and large scale faults. Indeed, underground rock laboratories allow developing decameter scale relatively well constrained experiments at the smallest distance from the hypocenters. URL’s experiments allowed developing new monitoring technologies coupling pressure-strain-seismic measurements and reproducing complete earthquakes sequences analogous to natural ones. They also allowed exploring past movements of faults and sometimes also paleofluids in three dimensions and characterizing different fault architectures and hydromechanical properties in unaltered conditions. This is particularly important in the study of faults affecting clay formations which could not be observed at the Earth’s surface because of the high alteration. Here we show how examples from the Mont Terri (Switzerland) and Tournemire (France) The URLs may help in (i) defining the concepts of fault architecture in shales, (ii) estimating fault hydromechanical properties from field decameter scale experiments. Some key results are that faults which are critically stressed or at the rupture limit can reactivate for stresses variations within the range of those produced by shallow underground excavations, and that slight micrometer-to-millimeter scale reactivations may lead to large factor-of-10-to-1000 permeability increases. Such promising results show that URL’s experiments may bring new insights on some key processes that control the relations between fault stability and permeability evolutions in very permeable layers.

Jan 1, 2015

By H. T. Fargey

This paper considers the social, economic and political factors and their influence on future production and marketing of Western Canadian minerals. Among the subjects discussed are inflation, taxation, anti-combines legislation, unstable international currency relationships, economic nationalism and protectionism, the European Common Market and environmentalism.

Jan 1, 1973

By F. A. Forward

"IntroductionTHE LYNN LAKE MINE, situated in Manitoba about 150 miles north of Sherridon, has been actively developed by Sherritt Gordon Mines, Limited, during the past seven years, resulting in the establishment of a proven reserve of over 14,000,000 tons of ore containing 1.223 per cent nickel, 0.618 per cent copper, and additional cobalt values. For many years, the Sherritt Gordon Company operated a copper-zinc-gold mine at Sherridon but, as this mine was approaching exhaustion and as it was proposed to use the mining and milling equipment to treat the Lynn Lake ore, a number of unusual problems were faced in transferring plant and operations from the one mine to the other, and particularly in preparing to undertake nickel production.Preliminary investigation showed that the ore could be concentrated by flotation to produce a copper concentrate containing 28 to 30 per cent copper with less than 1 per .cent nickel, and a nickel concentrate containing 11 to 14 per cent nickel, 0.3 to 0.4 per cent cobalt, and less than 2 per cent .copper, with high recovery of the three metals in .the concentrates. It was apparent that, initially, the copper concentrate could be economically smelted and refined in the usual manner. But as the nickel concentrate contained an insignificant amount of precious metals (less than 0.02 oz. per ton) and as .it had a much higher nickel content than comparable concentrates normally produced from sulphide ores, the selection of a treatment process and the location of a plant required careful study."

Jan 1, 1953

By G. A. Pinsky, Pickard M. K

"IntroductionTWO METHODS of mucking have been used in sinking C shaft, the five-compartment production shaft of the Yellowknife property of Giant Yellowknife Gold Mines, Limited:(a) Band mucking during the original sinking in 1949 and 1950 (l); and(b) Mechanical mucking with the Cryderman shaft mucker during the recent deepening in 1954.This paper briefly describes the recent deepening and compares the performance figures of the two sinking operations.PlanningProduction planning in 1952 showed that it would be advisable to deepen C shaft in 1954 to provide for three new production levels and the installation of an underground crusher. To complete the required shaft work it would be necessary for a shaft crew to deepen the shaft about 500 feet, to partly excavate three level stations and a crusher station, and to cut a station for the loading pocket. Figure 1, a vertical section of the lower part of the shaft, shows the details of the deepening programme.During the planning period, Giant had a rather small supervisory staff and at the same time was experiencing a heavy labour turnover. As it was obvious that production would suffer if the sinking crew were recruited at the mine, it was decided that the merits of contracting-the shaft sinking to an independent contractor should be investigated."

Jan 1, 1955

By Carol A. Pilon

"IntroductionRECENTLY, the Saskatchewan Research Council (Saskatoon ) marked the completion of one of its coal-related projects with the publication of the Bibliography and Index of Coal in Saskatchewan and Adjoining Provinces and States, hereafter referred to as the Bibliography and Index of Coal. Over a two-year time period, literature was surveyed and indexed and bibliographic data were compiled using a computer-assisted information retrieval system called FAMULUS. The final publication contains 1150 bibliographic references, which are cross-referenced by six indices.The project was initiated in September 1974, in support of Saskatchewan's Coal Resources Evaluation Program , an ongoing research program sponsored by the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources (Ottawa) and the Province of Saskatchewan. This program places emphasis on such areas of concern as the occurrence of deposits, chemical and physical properties, calculation of reserves and computer-assisted applications for the evaluation of lignite resources in the Province. Attention is also given to aspects of geophysical exploration, mining conditions and economics, by-products and the transporting of lignite. These are the subject areas .covered by the Bibliography and Index of Coal.The over -all objectives of the literature indexing project may be enumerated as follows: (1) to build a specialized resource library by surveying established public and specialized libraries, and commercial data bases; (2) to enter library data into the FAMULUS information retrieval system, to be used to generate bibliographies and indexes, and to retrieve information by the use of specified searching techniques; (3) to make this library data available to interested persons."

Jan 1, 1977

By F. H. Samuel, H. Tahiri, S. Valtierra, H. W. Doty, A. M. Samuel

L'affinage des grains dans les alliages d'aluminium consiste à augmenter le nombre de sites de cristallisation de la phase a-Al afin d'obtenir une structure fine. Les alliages mères de type Al-Ti-B sont largement utilisés comme raffineurs des grains. Cette étude a pour but d'établir des mécanismes convenables d'affinage des grains dans l'alliage A356 en utilisant cinq alliages mères et deux températures de coulée (750°C et 950°C). Les résultats montrent que la phase a-Al prend une forme selon l'alliage mère ajoute; les échantillons coules a haute température montrent une taille de grain plus grosse; les températures de germination et de croissance augmentent avec I' augmentation du Ti ou du B et la taille des grains diminue. L'alliage mère Al-4%B montre une puissance remarquable en comparaison d'autres alliages mères. Pour cet alliage mère, le titane résiduel dans l'alliage A356 réagit avec le bore pour former TiB2 qui, par la suite, agit comme un germe actif pour la phase a-Al.

Jan 1, 2006

By G. W. Poling, E. M. Coelho

"Sedimentary phosphate ores make up approximately 87% of the world's known reserves and are generally more difficult to beneficiate than igneous ores. In almost all cases, desliming prior to flotation represents the major source of losses. Laboratory studies of selective desliming of sedimentary ores are presented. Some fundamental studies with pure mineral systems are also discussed. Selective desliming, especially using selective flocculation, gave the best performance. Possible industrial applications of this selective flocculation-flotation procedure are discussed.IntroductionPhosphate ores are a major source of raw materials used in inorganic fertilizers (which supply nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium). Approximately 96% of the total world production of phosphate is utilized in the fertilizer industry. Reserves and production data are available in the literature. Today deposits with grades as low as 4% P2O5 are exploited in a few cases. However, in some northern African deposits, ore grades are still as high as 33 - 35% P2O5. Hout pointed out in 1982 that approximately 200 million tonnes of phosphate ore were upgraded by flotation only.Although there is a large number of phosphate minerals (over 300, only those in the apatite series are important ore minerals in phosphate ores. The most common member in this series is fluorapatite – Ca5(PO4)3F. However, in sedimentary phosphate rocks, many different substituents occur in the apatite lattice. Carbonate-fluorapatite (or francolite) is one of the most common names used to describe sedimentary apatites. It can be represented by the empirical formula:"

Jan 1, 1986

By J. D. Christian

WHEN mining development began in the Kirkland Lake camp, twenty-five years ago, there was very little information obtainable from surface showings as to the nature of the ore deposits. A length of almost a mile of the main 'break' lay under the south arm of the lake, and elsewhere most of the outcrops were covered with glacial drift. Shafts were sunk on ore-bodies of uncertain value, either on the outcrop of the veins or-because of the lake to the north-in the south or hanging-wall. In the second year of the camp's development, the Great War broke out and retarded progress for its duration. He would have been a real optimist who, in those early years, could have foreseen mining at depths of more than a mile.

Jan 1, 1939

By C. E. Ells

Current knowledge of the behaviour of inert gases in metals is reviewed, with particular emphasis given to the phenomenon of the growth of gas-filled bubbles.

Jan 1, 1960

By T. C. Cheng, G. P. Demopoulos

It is the object of this paper to discuss various options for improving the hematite process in terms of increased throughput hence lower capital cost and production of saleable quality hematite. With reference to increasing the throughput of the process, it has now been determined via the analysis of Akita Zinc Co's continuous industrial autoclave performance data that the process kinetics is limited by the rate of the hydrolytic precipitation reaction. By correlating the hydrolytic precipitation rate to supersaturation ratio, it is shown that accelerated kinetics can be achieved via the following measures: (1) in-situ neutralization with addition of zinc calcine; (2) elevation of temperature; and (3) dilution of feed; of which, the first one was retained for further evaluation. According to presented estimates, addition of calcine, amounting to only 2.6% of the total zinc calcine processed, can allow for shortening the retention time by at least 50%. Such drastic shortening of retention time may be either used to increase the throughput of a given autoclave circuit or alternatively to release autoclave capacity for clean hematite production. Hydrothermal treatment of the crude hematite product proved effective in producing clean hematite as according to laboratory tests, hence allowing the sulphur content of hematite to be reduced from around 4% to less than 1%. A conceptual flowsheet incorporating in-situ neutralization for accelerated kinetics with hydrothermal upgrading of crude hematite without sacrificing production capacity and with minimum upset of the plant's water balance is described.

Jan 1, 2004

By J-F. Béland, N. Parson

Aluminum extrusions are widely used for automotive crash management systems due to their superior specific energy absorption capabilities, as compared to steel. The Al-Mg-Si alloy series can be readily extruded into complex multi-hollow profiles, as required in crash systems, and can be used to target a range of desired strength levels. This paper focuses on the development of an axial crush test protocol and evaluation of the crush performance of common 6XXX series alloys for a variety of tempers. The observed crush behaviour is then compared to tensile test results.

Jan 1, 2015

By Sib N. Mukherjee

Main ventilation fans are used in all the mines and they run continuously 24 hours a day and 365 days in a year. Any improvement in their performance can lead to considerable power saving. The basic principle for selection, operations, and related measures are discussed in brief in the paper. The contributions of different elements of mine fan on its performance are discussed in brief. The means to improve efficiency of a running fan is also discussed and the importance of saving even 1 Kwh is elaborated. It is found that the cost of the energy saved may even permit a replacement fan to be procured in a few years time.

May 1, 2007

By W. T. Sampson

Introduction The Kirkland Lake (Ontario) property of Wright-Hargreaves Mines, Limited, - consists of four claims. The two main shear zones or 'breaks' of the Kirkland Lake camp extend through three of these claims, for a distance of approximately 3,500 feet. These claims are on the northeast side of the original lake. The water in this section of the lake has now been replaced with mill tailings. The degree of success of any completed undertaking, especially in the mining industry, reflects the personnel involved. I state with pleasure that the successful deepening of No. 5 winze from 6,400 feet to 7,272 feet was largely due to the co-operation and skilled workmanship of Shaft Captain J. Myelde and his efficient 'leaders'. This winze was sunk at a time when it was most difficult to obtain experienced shaftmen, with the result that the crews did not wholly consist of experienced men (although their desire to learn shaft sinking soon gave good results). This condition added greatly to the responsibilities and duties of those in charge, whose first consideration was for the safety of those engaged in the work, and I take great pride in recording that the entire sinking programme was completed without a lost-time accident. Location of Winze Due to the information obtained through deep diamond-drill holes collared below the 6,000-foot level being of sufficient importance to warrant further exploration, it was decided to deepen the existing No. 5 winze rather than sink another winze. This decision meant that the sinking must be co-ordinated with and proceed simultaneously with operations in the winze, where mining was being carried on between the 3,900-foot and 5,100-foot horizons, inclusive.

Jan 1, 1948