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By H Ş. Duzgun

It is expected that the future of mines will heavily adopt autonomy. However, problems with leveraging workforce transition, meeting Sustainable Development Goals, SDG’s (poverty, reduced inequalities), managing uncertainties (geologic, operational, economic), cybersecurity (connectivity, cyber-physical infrastructure) and innovation (transformative processes, real-time decision-making etc) are required to be solved for the intended autonomy. These problems also impact the safety of the future mine environment. The AI technologies provide a broad range of opportunities for enhancing mine safety. However, development of an accurate AI model for mine safety requires a large number of data, which may not be readily available to overcome the associated uncertainties in the mine environment.

May 5, 2022

By C M. Côte, P Bolz, L Pagliero, M Edraki, M Shaygan, P Erskine

Mines in Queensland must now prepare a Progressive Rehabilitation and Closure (PRC) plan, with the requirement to justify the selection of the post-mining land use (PMLU) for each rehabilitation domain. Given that there are nearly 200 mines who must undertake a comprehensive PMLU assessment, there is a need to develop methods that will minimise the duplication of effort. As part of a broader initiative on innovative post-mining land use planning, this project undertook a regional analysis of the technical suitability of several PMLUs.

Aug 2, 2023

By G Mudd, N Haque, S A. Northey

Life cycle assessment (LCA) provides an internationally standardised framework for estimating the environmental impacts associated with products or services (International Organisation for Standardisation, 2006). A particular strength of LCA is the ability to consider indirect impacts that occur at different stages of a product’s life (eg raw material acquisition, manufacture, use, disposal or recycling) and through its supply chain (Figure 1). A wide variety of impact categories are able to be considered by LCA, such as the potential contribution to global warming, ozone depletion, marine eco-toxicity or freshwater eutrophication.CSIRO has a long history of using LCA to compare the environmental impacts associated with alternative mining, mineral processing and metal production technologies (Haque and Norgate, 2014; Norgate and Haque, 2012, 2013). These ‘mine-to-metal’ assessments have primarily focused upon estimating embodied energy and greenhouse gas impacts associated with these production processes; however, more recently there has been a refocus to also consider consumptive water-use impacts in more detail (Northey et al, 2014).CITATION:Northey, S A, Haque, N and Mudd, G, 2016. Water-related data requirements for improved life cycle assessment of mining, mineral processing and tailings management, in Proceedings Life-of-Mine 2016 Conference, pp 16–18 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jun 28, 2016

By G L. Boyd

Backfill applied to highwall mining is foreseen as a means to increase recovery of mineable coal to levels comparable with underground longwall mining. This paper describes the progress of research to demonstrate the role required of backfill to achieve real increases in coal recovered by highwall mining methods.

Jan 1, 1998

Mining of narrow vein mineralisation, invariably depending on the mining method selected, involves the extraction of both ore and waste rock. The level to which mining of waste rock can be minimised depends on numerous factors, but particularly the thickness and dip of the deposit. Resue mining is a method of mining that allows split face firing within stopes to allow waste and ore to be mined separately, allowing dilution to be minimised. This paper examines the technique of resue firing and its applicability to the mining of narrow vein deposits. Particular emphasis is placed on the conditions in which resue mining presents a suitable option for mining of narrow veins.

Jan 1, 2008

The paper examines the difficulties encountered by objectors to mining privilege applications. It describes the various involvements of the environmental defence society in the mining controversy and makes some comment on the proposed amendments to the Mining Act 1971.

Jan 1, 1981

By C Xu, B Li

Multi-sensor fusion visual perception technology significantly enhances visual perception capabilities in complex and harsh environments by combining visual data from different sensors. This technology is especially useful for scenarios where traditional single visible light sensors, such as standard cameras, struggle due to poor lighting, adverse visual conditions, or other visual obstructions. In environments with low light, smoke, or dust, the performance of conventional visible light sensors degrades, limiting their application. By integrating data from various sensors like radar, infrared thermal imaging, and others, multi-sensor fusion technology provides a more comprehensive and complementary visual solution. This fusion not only enhances the robustness of visual systems but also greatly expands their potential applications in fields like visual surveillance. In recent years, deep learning methods have become the mainstream technology for addressing multi-sensor fusion issues, demonstrating significant advantages in adaptive feature selection compared to traditional machine learning methods. However, deep learning-based multi-sensor fusion algorithms still face several challenges. The design of network structures is often redundant, lacking effective screening of useful components within multimodal information. Mainstream fusion algorithms focus excessively on improving display effects without adequately considering the needs of downstream applications and tasks. Existing fusion perception algorithms are generally designed for open visual scenes and lack targeted design for complex visual degradation factors present in tunnel environments of mines. Current deep learning methods for designing multi-sensor fusion networks heavily rely on manual experience to create fusion modules. This reliance increases the complexity of network design and can lead to redundancy. Redundant network modules are difficult to identify in end-to-end learning tasks at this stage, significantly slowing down network inference and potentially interfering with the output of fusion perception. Additionally, training these fusion modules typically requires large amounts of well-annotated multimodal data, further increasing implementation difficulty and cost. For instance, the fusion network design proposed by Li and Wu (2018) focuses on extracting multimodal fusion features, while Zhao et al (2020) introduced a feature decomposition mechanism in the feature fusion and extraction modules. Researchers like Zhang and Ma (2021), Xu et al (2020), and Liu et al (2017) have attempted to improve network structures through dense cascades and the introduction of residual connections. Although these methods have improved the handling of multimodal information to some extent, they still face limitations in distinguishing between useful and redundant information, with redundancy persisting in network designs. Ideally, the design of fusion networks should be more intelligent, guiding network structure design heuristically based on the importance of different modal information for the current task. This would reduce information redundancy and network weights, requiring the development of new algorithms or frameworks capable of automatically identifying and optimising fusion strategies, thereby reducing dependence on manual experience while improving fusion efficiency and network performance. Current deep learning designs for multi-sensor fusion algorithms often overlook the

Sep 1, 2024

By D R. Chalmers

Coal dust explosions have occurred in coal mines across the world. The Mitsui Miike Coal Mine disaster in 1963 was an example of how this hazard was not managed effectively, resulting in the loss of 458 lives and hundreds of people sustaining permanent brain injury from carbon monoxide poisoning. Management of the risks for this hazard have been well documented and have been implemented in modern coal mines. A recent trend in some mines has seen the abolition of barriers on roadways on the basis that the risks are being managed by the current controls. These controls include stone dust application, trickle dusters, dust analysis and dust removal. This paper explores the science behind such controls and questions the need for barrier protection on belt roads.CITATION:Chalmers, D R, 2013. Cybulski revisited - Lessons on dust, in Proceedings The Australian Mine Ventilation Conference , pp 165-168 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jul 1, 2013

Production of oic at BHP Minerals Pty Ltd's Cannington Mine commenced in May 1997. The initial sloping blocks at the [nine are located in the upper part of the Footwall Lead lode, and the Hangingwall Lead and Glenholme Breccia lodes. This paper discusses the geological investigations, interpretation and modelling that was undertaken for the Footwall Lead lode production block at Cannington Mine, as well as providing a basic geological introduction to the Cannington deposit.

Jan 1, 1997

By G Chitombo

Mass mining methods have become the mining industry’s preferred way of extracting most of the world’s most important metal and mineral commodities. Given the rapidly increasing global demand for commodities, the requirement to increase the contribution of some of these (eg copper and gold) from underground sources also continues to grow. In the case of copper this contribution is needed by a number of major producers to supplement production from their ageing deep open pits. Satisfying this increased demand will require the design, construction and operation of more effective, higher capacity and larger scale mines which, in turn, will require enhanced mass underground mining techniques such as block caving (BC), panel caving (PC) and sublevel caving (SLC).It is now widely accepted that future discoveries of orebodies, which will be developed using these methods, are almost certainly to be much deeper than the deposits presently being mined in this way and made more challenging because of the likelihood that the associated grades may be much lower than currently mined. The design and mining of future large-scale cave mines (supercaves) will become crucial in order to extract full value from such deposits. An essential prerequisite of this will be a much improved knowledge of the deposit, ie Total Deposit Knowledge. In this context, Total Deposit Knowledge is the characterisation of the ore deposit and its surrounds at all scales and includes; rock type (lithology), the spatial orientation of a range of geological features or discontinuities, rock mass fabric knowledge, metal grade and distribution data, geometallurgical data (including alteration), geo-hydrology, permeability and porosity. This is the information that will be used, as now, to delineate geological and geotechnical domains and construct models, but with outcomes superior to those presently available. From this information better-informed feasibility study design decisions and performance predictions must be made. In summary more geological information and analysis is required and this needs to be aligned to potential mining and processing requirements much earlier in the project than commonly occurs.

Aug 22, 2011

It was Harold McMillan, Prime Minister of England 30 years ago, who used the phrase "The Wind of Change" to describe political events in Africa in his day. So well did this phrase capture the spirit of the time that it echoed around the world, and the echo has never stopped. Change is the constant factor in the society in which we live and everyone of us has had experience of the effect which it has had on our professional and personal lives.Change will not stop, it will continue at an increasing rate and the questions we must answer are how do we prepare ourselves to meet the challenge of future change and how do we take advantage of the opportunities which it will bring?It is these questions which I wish to discuss in this address.There is nothing new about change in the mineral industry, it has been happening for thousands of years and it will continue as long as civilisation exists on earth. One type of change is economic and we are all aware of the rises and falls which occur in the prices of metals and minerals (Figure 1). When these have happened in an orderly manner, and could be predicted and planned for, it has been possible to take advantage of the benefits and minimise ill-effects, but when they were sudden and precipitate, and could not be predicted, the consequences were serious. The extreme example, of course, was the oil price shock of the 1970s which had such disastrous effects on industry and society.Other types of change are social, cultural and political. They have all been important in recent years and will continue to be so in the future.But it is technological change which may well be the most important because its effects are profound and irreversible, and alter irrevocably the way in which we live. So in discussing the mineral industry in a changing world I will talk specifically about technological change.

Jan 1, 1989

THIS paper is not intended to be a detailed description of the lead, smelting plant at Cockle Creek, as this has been covered in previous papers for the Institute in 1918, Proceedings No. 31, by other members of the staff; but the idea is to give some of the practices and conditions peculiar to these works, also to give some experiments carried out and the conclusions arrived at. Unfortunately, owing to the closing down of the smelting and refinery plant at these works, sone of the experiments could not be carried to a more definite and commercial basis, but they are given in the hope that they may be of interest to members, and may perhaps suggest further thought along the lines indicated.ROASTING AND SINTERINGThe greater part of the ore treated at these works came from the Central mine, Broken Hill, but, in addition, a large quantity was purchased from other parts of New South Wales and from Tasmania. This purchased ore was seldom received in the form of a concentrate, but initially in its crude state, and therefore had to be crushed. The crushing was done in a Krupp mill, and the ore then added to the roasting mixture. This addition of crude ore was one of the main...

Jan 1, 1923

By B Maybee

In underground mine planning, many potentially value-eroding decisions are made due to a lack of time and proper evaluation practices. The information required for mine planning decisions goes beyond external sources of uncertainty that are recognised by typical evaluation techniques used in the mining industry, to include technical factors (eg mine development layout) and the ability of a mineral extraction project to achieve its anticipated production levels. Due to the individual characteristics that define underground mining projects, each will exhibit a different risk profile, and thus advanced optimisation and evaluation techniques are required to capture this information.As underground mine planning tools become more sophisticated, mine planners have the capacity to investigate numerous mine sequencing options to identify the best strategy for a given project, creating higher value for shareholders. This paper describes a risk-based evaluation methodology (RbEM) that accounts for financial and technical risk in the evaluation of underground mining projects. While the use of the RbEM has been described in previous works, no benchmarking of the benefits that can be realised from a change in those decisions that are made early in the process has been undertaken. To show the benefits that can be achieved from using the RbEM, this paper updates a case study to which the RbEM was applied, and takes a retrospective look at whether additional value would have been gained by following the strategic recommendation of the RbEM versus a typical optimisation exercise that aims to maximise the net present value.CITATION:Maybee, B, 2012. Can a risk-based evaluation provide a more valuable mine design?, in Proceedings Project Evaluation 2012 , pp 53-58 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

May 24, 2012

By Y Lin, B J. Seligmann, M Hassall, S Micklethwaite

For multi-site mining companies, checking the quality and consistency of the data recorded in risk registers is important for confirming how well mine safety management systems have been implemented. However, this task is complicated by the differences in scope of the site, their particular nature, the complexity of the operations and many other factors that can introduce nuances to the characteristics of the risk registers. We present here an application of a technique called Causal Network Topology Analysis for comparing the quality and consistency of risk registers. By quality we refer to, for example: - missing causal relationships between risks - location of missing controls - focus of risk treatment strategies: prevention versus mitigation controls. By consistency we refer to how causally interdependent are the risk events. There are often causal interactions between the lines of a risk register that mean that the likelihood and consequence scores that are applied to each risk event are not independent. We measure this degree of interactions by: - proportion of independent scenarios per register - efficiency of risk treatment strategy comparison. This approach can indicate quality and consistency differences between registers irrespective of the actual details of the site or operation. This occurs by comparing aspects of the structure of a causal network extracted from how the risk events, causes, controls and consequences causally interact. In this work we compare pairs of registers to demonstrate the approach.

Apr 16, 2024

DCF Valuations are very important to individuals and companies involved in the mining industry. Such valuations are critical to investment decisions in relation to new and existing projects. In particular they provide fundamental information to shareholders in the event of a capital raising or takeover and to financiers supporting mining companies and projects. Also, DCF Valuations are often used to support asset carrying values in the financial statements of mining companies. This paper presents a Chartered Accountant's (CA's) perspective on the main issues to be considered in preparing, analysing and relying upon DCF methods in mineral valuations and provides some practical examples relating to key issues. The paper makes the important point that DCF methods involve making assumptions about future events and circumstances that inherently contain uncertainty which results in a valuation prepared on a DCF basis providing a range of values that are not perfect or accurate. In order that DCF valuations provide meaningful information the underlying methodology used and assumptions made must be consistent, sound and well supported. Credibility of those involved in preparing mineral valuations is vital and this paper supports the adoption of sound practices by all concerned.

Jan 1, 1994

The first steps towards the use of artificial intelligence to manage ground conditions have been made. Millar and Hudson (1993) outline the theory behind the use of neural networks in monitoring rock engineering performance.

Jan 1, 1994

Jan 1, 2004

Water Savings and Coal Product Compromise

Sep 13, 2010

By Briggs D

Comparing the results of a plant trial by averaging performance measures collected during the trial with measures collected before and after the trial is often quite subjective because of the impact of natural variation on the process. This is

Jan 1, 1997

Crystalline glass defects (usually referred to as stones) come in a wide range of compositions and from a variety of sources. Complete identification requires a determination of the mineral phases present and their textural arrangement. Until the source has been determined, no remedial action can be taken to eliminate the problem.

Jan 1, 1989