Search Documents

By Charles S. Ney

"THE WRITER'S acquaintance with Kootenay King mine is limited to a brief geological excursion in the vicinity. This paper has been compiled largely from maps of J. Sullivan, mine geologist in 1952, kindly made available to the writer by Transcontinental Resources; a 1942 private report by W. L. Brown; and personal communications with J. Sullivan. Remarks on regional geology, and the comparison with Sullivan mine, are specifically the writer's.The Kootenay King mine is situated in the westernmost range of the southern Canadian Rockies at an elevation of 7,300 feet. From the Sullivan Mine at Kimberley, B. C., it lies 19 miles due east. Six miles of this distance are represented by the pronounced topographical and structural gap of the Rocky Mountain Trench. Mineral claims were locat-ed in the area prior to 1898. The deposit was first seriously explored in the late 1920s, and a small orebody was then outlined and developed. Mining and milling were undertaken in 1951.52. The orebody, amounting to about 14,000 tons, was mined out, and no significant new ore was revealed.The orebody is a replacement of dolomitic argillite by fine-grained galena, sphalerite, and pyrite. The sulphides are finely laminated in the direction of bedding, following out minor folds faithfully. The grade of ore estimated from diamond drill holes (W. L. Brown, 1942) was 11 ·I per cent zinc, 11 ·I per cent lead, and 3·8 ounces per ton of silver. The mineralized zone extends about 250 feet horizontally, 160 feet vertically, with a width of six to twenty feet.General GeologyThe country rocks are sediments of the Aldridge formation of late Precambrian age. For several thousand feet stratigraphically above and below the mine, the formation consists mainly of thinly laminated argillite and siltstone. Several horizons contain appreciable carbonate. About 2,800 feet stratigraphically below the mine, predominantly dolomitic beds mark the top of the underlying Fort Steele formation. The medium-bedded fine quartzites, which characterize about 10,000 feet of the Middle Aldridge in the Purcell range, have a restricted development amounting to only 2,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains. This member is about 2,200 feet above the mine horizon."

Jan 1, 1949

By J. R. Maxwell

In 1970 expansion was completed increasing mill capacity from 2,000 to 3,000 T.P.D. Actual grinding capacity is 3,400 T,P,D. at a grind of 60% -200 mesh,The ore bodies are vein type, containing about 12% sulphides, with mill heads averaging 2.25% Cu, 0.015 oz.Au, and O.4O oz, Ag. per ton.Summary and Conclusions:During the period Jnnuar-1 1971 to December 1973 inclusive the use of large cells at Opeminka have shown that metallurgy is comparable to when using conventional cells, Operating and maintenance costs are lower, An on stream analyzer with reagents controlled by computer, are being assessed further.Opej1atljn Of Cells:!lo cell level adjustments are required when tonnage is adjusted 20 to 25%.Depending on mill heads and grade of concentrate reagents are adjusted to the first rougher for metallurgical control. Reagents to second rougher and scavengers are seldom adjusted as feed to this section has a maximum variation of about 0.2'~ Cu.Power – Maintenance and Space Requirement :Our total power consumption for 3,400 T.P,D. flotation circuit for operation and air supply is 280 H.P. Previous power drawn using conventional cells was 400 H.P. at 2,000 T.P.D.Total maintenance costs for flotation circuit has averaged $1,100.00 per year for the 3 years of operation, this cost should remain constant.Floor space required for cells and walkways is 2,000 sq.ft.

Jan 1, 1974

By Rocky (Yaokun) Wu

Rock burst is one of the biggest challenges to ground control in the mining industry. With increasing mining depth and mining scale, there are more and more industry requirements on yielding rock support. Since 2008, Jennmar has been conducting large scale research and development works to develop a technically reliable and cost effective yielding rock bolt. This paper introduces a new yielding rock support - Yield-Lok bolt. The bolt is characterized by the designed yielding ability to produce 150 ~ 250 mm of deflection at 8 ~ 10 metric tons (Mt) loads for every 16.4kJ energy input. Its performance characteristics are consistent through multiple and varying amplitude of impacts. In this paper, the design criteria of the bolt and the principle of performance are described, the dynamic testing results are discussed; and the features and application of the bolt are presented.

Oct 1, 2010

By A. Bauer, P. Katsabanis, M. Baker

The principal results from a previous paper presented at the Mine Accident Prevention Association of Ontario in 1987 (1) are summarized here. It is concluded that the selection of explosives in mines experiencing sulphide ignitions is important and that aluminized explosives should be avoided because of their high explosion temperatures and their detonation products. The duration of the blast is also critical and secondary blasts should not occur simultaneously with nearby priroa:ty blasts.

May 11, 1988

By Ellis Thomson

The microscope is now used extensively not only in the examination of solid ore but also in the determination of fragmental mill products. It has therefore become a matter of paramount importance to be able to mount and polish fragmental as well as solid specimens in the easiest and most efficient way, so that the minerals present may be readily determined. In the case of the solid ore the ordinary mount of plasticine set on a glass or metal slide serves for most practical purposes. An improvement on this is furnished by the small brass container inside of which the specimen is mounted in a cementing medium of sealing wax. The latter is the method in use at Harvard University. It has the advantage of uniform height, thus obviating the necessity of a slide of any sort. It is also easily catalogued as the brass holder may be stamped with a convenient series of letters and numbers that will serve as a label. Other advantages of this type are the ease with which any particular part of the section may be re-located, the excellent storing facilities afforded by mounts of uniform size, and the possibility of polishing ten or a dozen sections at the same time by means of a holder which is placed over the polishing wheel, is geared with it, but revolves the opposite way.

Jan 1, 1926

By K. Sugawaral, W. Tongampl, K. Hiruta, Takasaki Y., A. Hosoi, T. Katol, A. Shibayamal

Printed circuit boards of discarded personal computers, televisions, mobile phones and so on contain a significant amount of valuable metals. For the recycle of valuable metals contained in the printed circuit board wastes (P CB W), the effect of temperature on chlorination-volatilization of metals under chlorine gas flow was studied. The experimental sample used was powder of two types: crushed PCBW (Sample 1) made from PC and industrial machines, and crushed-combusted PCBW (Sample 2) made from Sample 1. The principal element in Sample 1 and Sample 2 was copper, about 13 wt% and 20 wt% respectively. Sample 1 was composed of pure metals such as copper, tin and lead. In comparison, Sample 2 consisted of oxide metals such as copper oxide, tin dioxide and silicon dioxide. The two samples were heated at predefined temperatures (ranging from 300 °C to 900 °C) in chlorine gas. The chlorine gas flow into the furnace was set at a rate of 100 mL/min. As a result, copper in Sample 1 began to volatilize at 600 °C and completely vaporized at 700 °C. While in Sample 2, copper started to volatilize at 600 °C and reached 100% vaporization at 800 °C. For Sample 1, zinc finished volatilizing at 500 °C, while for Sample 2, zinc volatilization reached only about 80% (maximum). Also, lead, nickel and titanium showed similar results. Consequently the volatilization rate of Sample 1 is higher than Sample 2 and the temperature dependency was verified for copper, lead, zinc, nickel, antimony, titanium and chromium. In fact, the volatilization rate of these metals increased with the temperature. This result reflects the difference between pure metal and metal oxide, as Sample 2 was combusted before the chlorination-volatilization test. Moreover, the chlorination reaction may be accelerated by a reductive atmosphere because Sample 1 contains carbon. In this study, the volatilization behavior of some valuable metals in PCBW by chlorine gas was observed. Further improvement in the rate of volatilization can be achieved by optimizing the experimental conditions.

Jan 1, 2011

By D. M. Cruden

"When two discontinuities form a tetrahedral wedge in a rock slope, a factor of safety for the wedge can be simply calculated (if motion is driven only by gravity and resisted only by friction) from plots of the normals to discontinuities on an overlay of a polar, equal-area spherical projection to which the great circles of a similar equatorial projection have been added.IntroductionThe stability of slopes in rock masses is often controlled by the discontinuities that exist in the masses. In particular, the geometry of the discontinuities constrains the ways in which the mass may fail. Displaying the orientation of the discontinuities on a spherical projection has been found to be a useful way of identifying possible failure modes. The most concise display shows the orientation of the normals (or poles) to the discontinuities that compose the fabric of the rock mass. Computer processing of large samples of discontinuity orientations is necessary if the sampling biases identified by Terzaghi (1965) are to be routinely corrected. Fortunately, displays of the poles to discontinuities (or pi diagrams) are relatively easily produced on the line printer of a computer or by a computer plotter (Cruden , 1978; Ramsden and Cruden, 1979). Unfortunately, further analysis of the stability of a rock mass has tended to use traces of typical discontinuities on a spherical projection rather than pi diagrams; examples may be seen in Hoek and Bray's book (1981)."

Jan 1, 1990

By C. S. Lord

"The Regal Silver mine is 5 miles north-northwest of Albert canyon; a station on the main line of the Canadian Pacific railway; 21 miles east of Revelstoke; British Columbia.Development, commenced in 1918, comprises more than 8,000 feet of workings from six adits, one of which extends into the Regal Silver property from the adjacent Snowflake ground. Production has been limited to a little tungsten concentrate recovered recently from a few r..undred tons of ore treated in a small underground mill. The property has received some attention as a possible source of tin. The deposits are large quartz veins containing irregular sulphide bodies. Ore minerals normally make up less than 1 per cent of the veins and include pyrite, galena, sphalerite, scheelite, and stannite. The veins are approximately parallel with the bedding of the enclosing graphitic, siliceous to calcareous, slates and argillites. These strata are of Precambrian age, strike about northwest, and dip northeast. No other rocks are known in the vicinity of the workings . Granitic rocks, intrusive into t'he sediments, outcrop 4 miles to the southwest and 7 miles to the northeast and may underlie the property at no great depth."

Jan 1, 1954

By Kamran Esmaieli

Open Pit Mining Through Underground Voids: Challenges Main Challenges/Hazards: Unexpected collapse of the pit floor and/or pit walls; The loss of equipment and/or people into underground voids; Loss of explosives from blast holes that broken through into the underground voids. How to address these challenges? An important step that must be integrated into mine planning and design is the accurate detection and delineation of underground voids. (i.e. probe drilling, Geophysical techniques, laser scanning,?); Leaving a pillar of adequate thickness between the working bench and the underground voids; Backfilling the underground voids from surface using vertical or inclined raises; Monitoring the working locations (pit floor and pit slopes) to detect movements.

May 1, 2013

By J. A. Maritz

"The Hedley and Grant formulation for pillar strength has been widely adopted by the South Africa hard rock mining industry. Today, some forty year later, this formula still provides the foundation for pillar strength calculations when designing for stability and utilising pillars in mine layouts. Various mine specific back analyses were conducted to adjust the equation parameters based on underground observations of failed pillars and comparing to the pillar stresses calculated using numerical models. In all these instances, the influence of shear stresses was ignored. The key to more representative pillar strength estimation is a better understanding of the pillar loading environment.In this paper, special mining cases are evaluated and the existence of shear stresses on the pillar loading environment is illustrated. By revisiting some back analysis data for optimisation of the equation parameters, recommendations were made in respect of the influence of the shear stress component and on how this should be considered in determining the pillar strength.INTRODUCTIONCommon practice on flat dipping, shallow and intermediate depth ore deposits in the South African hard rock and coal mining industry is to exploit the mineral resource using a room-and-pillar layout. The design methodology is mainly based on a Factor of Safety (FoS) approach, where the strength of the pillar is compared to the effective load on the pillar. In these environments, FoS values of 1.6 are applied as it was found to correspond to a probability of failure in coal mines of 0.001. As discussed by Ryder and Jager (2002) page 279: “For lack of anything else more substantial, the figure of 1.6 is generally used in hard rock pillar design in South Africa”. Dependant on the designed purpose of the pillar, the FoS might be selected as high as 2.0 where long term stability is required. The factors directly influencing the FoS include the pillar height (which is linked to the mining height), effective pillar width, a rock-strength factor and extraction ratio."

Jan 1, 2015

By A. Torkian

Process water from production of concentrates in Meydook copper sulfide mine is transferred to the 8.3 million m3 tailings dam and a water retention pond after initial thickening. Elevated concentrations of heavy metals, sulfate, and TDS and decrease in pH as well as seepage into the aquifers have been the concern of the regulatory agencies since the start of activities. In this paper the results of a 6-month monitoring program from 4 wells are presented. The wells were located approximately 1.5 km from downstream of tailing dam (0.4 km from water retention pond) as well as upstream background well (2.28 km from water retention pond and 1.27 km from tailings dam). The objective was to study possible effect of accumulated tailings on the groundwater resources. Water levels in sampled wells were on average between 20 and 40 m. Results showed high levels of lead (5 ppb), copper (0.17-0.46 ppm) and selenium (73.1- 29.1 ppb). High levels of selenium and lead were partly due to natural geological settings of the area with high levels present in unaffected soils in the vicinity including water wells of villages upstream of mining operations. High copper levels were attributed to both mining operations as well as deposition from particulate air deposition onto the soil and transport to ground water by rain.

Aug 1, 2013

By Steve Scott

Green Economy Toyota Prius Hybrid contains about 50 kg of copper. All-electric cars have about 100 kg of copper. From where will all the copper come? Wind turbines have 1 metric ton of copper China is building 221 cities of 1 million people by 2025 (13 cities per year from 2008) = 10 New Yorks. The Greater Toronto Area has 5.6 million people, so a new GTA every 22 weeks!

May 1, 2013

By M. J. Steffens

ESPLIM is a novel separation technique that combines the advantages of solvent extraction and electrostatic dispersion but its application in the extraction of nickel by the direct solvent extraction route and the effect of high electrostatic field on the stability of organics have not been explored. These were investigated in this study and it was found that the technique allows 97% extraction of the nickel in a single stage compared with 3 stages by the conventional solvent extraction. Also, three months of exposure to 5.0 kV under simulated operational conditions had no adverse effect on the stability of organics.

Jan 1, 2005

By Steve Scott

Outline of Talk Seafloor Massive Sulfides (SMS) and Seafloor Sedimentary Sulfides (SSS) Ocean mining of SMS (Nautilus Minerals) Environmental issues Summary

May 1, 2013

By L. Yacher

Most metallurgical plants already have sophisticated control systems as well as a process-historian that manage thousands of real-time and historical variables. There exists a huge potential for operational improvement through the inference of patterns, correlations and cause-effect relationships within these records. The ability to run online and offline advanced multivariate statistical analyses represents a great potential for the mining industry, in various areas such as cathode quality improvement in an SX/EX plant, the analysis of the correlation between the ore characteristics and the mill throughput, the determination of early failure alerts for major equipment, etc. The background theory is described, as well as some practical experiences of operations in Chile and Peru. Cu2007

Jan 1, 2007

Overview n Why we audited the IRS n How we did it n What we discovered n What we learned n Where we are going next The unbroken chain of safety The Internal Responsibility System (IRS) The network of roles and relationships in a workplace, through which everyone works with mutual commitment to reduce or eliminate hazards.

May 1, 2003

By Rick Hyndman

? Context: Ø Global action on climate change ? The situation of trade-exposed industry sectors ? The federal government?s draft plan for industry ? CAPP?s position ? Canadian emissions & Canada?s Kyoto target Simple Economic Theory of Dealing with Externalities ? Put cost on emissions Ø Carbon tax Ø Emission trading with auctioned permits ? GHG costs get reflected in the prices of energy alternatives, goods & services Ø Decisions driven by changes in relative prices ? Switching to lower emission fuels ? More energy efficient ways of producing ? More energy efficient appliances, cars, housing ? Reduced demand for energy intensive goods & services ? Anticipation of higher CO2 price drives low CO2 technology Development

Nov 1, 2002

By William Skinner, Jim Pae Lem, Massimiano Zanin

It is well known that the specific density of minerals has adverse influence on the classification performance of a hydrocyclone, particularly when liberated high density minerals such as gold or uranium are present in sulphide ores. These liberated heavy minerals often misreport to the underflow and recirculate to the system. Such phenomena does result in serious issues in a closed-grinding circuit, such as overgrinding, leading to production of flaky particles (as in gold) or ultrafines, in addition to increased energy inefficiency. In plants which present gold liberated at coarser size, loss of gold due to cyclone inefficiency is sometimes prevented by incorporating gravity concentrators into the grinding circuit to recover the gold. The work reported in this paper looks at whether the effect of density will prevent successful rejection of liberated U-bearing minerals in the –10µm size range of a plant re-cleaner feed, which is necessary to minimize penalty U accumulation in a copper concentrator. The study was carried out using a cyclone rig with spigot diameter of 0.25 inches in combination with batch flotation. It was found that the density effect is almost negligible at particle sizes below 10µm. Consequently, the liberated U-bearing particles finer than 10 µm were successfully removed in the overflow stream as rejects and hence U grade in the copper concentrate remarkably reduced, by 16 ppm. Based on the results, de-sliming of the re-cleaner feed was recommended for plant trial and implementation.

Jan 1, 2016

By S. Feinstein, I. Reznik, Y. H. Hatzor, O. Shitrit, Y. O. Rosenberg, H. J. Vinegar, S. Nguyen

"We report the effects of porosity and total organic carbon (TOC) content on the mechanical behavior of organic-rich chalks, based on laboratory measurements. The organic-rich chalks are from the Senonian Ghareb and Mishash formations. This deposit is an immature oil-prone source rock, about 300 meters thick, situated at shallow depths (several hundreds of meters) in the Shefela basin in central Israel. The study is based on core data collected from the Zoharim borehole.Three main phases comprise the bulk volume of this rock: 1) carbonate mineralogical phase (predominantly calcite); 2) pores (mostly saturated with brine); and 3) solid organic phase (type IIS kerogen). The mechanical effects of porosity (23-45%) and TOC (4-19%) are evaluated based on bulk incompressibilities vs. volumetric fractions analysis. Volumetric fractions of mineralogical and organic phases were obtained by porosity, density and TOC measurements. Saturated rock bulk moduli were measured through ultrasonic velocity measurements. Saturated rock bulk moduli correlate best with the sum of kerogen and pore volume fractions, rather than each of them separately. The volumetric fractions were also used to define the range of bulk modulus of the organic-rich chalk, using the Hashin-Shtrikman upper and lower bounds. Based on Marion's Bounding Average Method (BAM), the normalized stiffness factor of the chalk averaged at w=0.197, indicating a soft pore geometry. Using the average normalized stiffness factor, the BAM predictions showed excellent match with the saturated rock bulk modulus and the sum of kerogen and pore volume fractions. Based on our findings, it is inferred that kerogen grains do not support the solid skeleton but are distributed between the minerals grains. We also propose here a straightforward approach for calculating the Hashin-Shtrikman bounds, based on TOC and porosity measurements. The mechanical effects of porosity and TOC indicated here are very important for the understanding of the influence of immature kerogen presence in highly porous chalks, as the Ghareb and Mishash formations."

Jan 1, 2015

By Yi-Chun Lin

Mechanical/Electrical/Piping (MEP) systems, due to their complexity and diversity, are the most intricate part of building construction. This being the case, Combined Services Drawings (CSD) and Structure, Electric and Mechanic(SEM) drawings can ensure that all coordination issues are resolved prior to construction. Construction companies attempt to apply Building Information Modeling (BIM) to manage and integrate engineering information and solutions efficiently into the CSD and SEM processes to enhance the accuracy of design and the efficiency of review. There are several powerful commercial tools, such as Bentley Navigator, Autodesk Navisworks, and Tekla BIMsight, that can review the integrated BIM model and detect conflicts in systems, and allow planners to correct the conflict issues one at a time. However, for increasing numbers of conflicts, this may be inefficient, and requires them to be arranged in a list according to impact and seriousness before solving them. For this reason, this research implements a module for conflict impact assessment based on rule-based reasoning to classify and weigh conflict impact and seriousness, and highlight the conflicted objects in the BIM system in different colors depending on their conflict type and seriousness during the analysis. This system not only detects and lists possible conflicts and errors, but also sorts them according to the severity of impact and conflict type. Planners can effectively modify the BIM models according to these conflicts as they are listed and visualized in the BIM system. If these conflicts, such as pipeline interference and problems of insufficient space, can be avoided in the early stages of planning, it facilitates the achievement of project objectives in quality, scheduling, and cost.

Aug 1, 2013