Importance of Geology in Cave Mining

SEG Discovery ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Gideon Chitombo
Keyword(s):  
Underground Mining ◽  
Mineral Exploration ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Open Pit ◽  
Infrastructure Development ◽  
Mine Design ◽  
Discontinuous Surface ◽  
High Productivity ◽  
Heterogeneous Rock

Editor’s note: The Geology and Mining series, edited by Dan Wood and Jeffrey Hedenquist, is designed to introduce early-career professionals and students to a variety of topics in mineral exploration, development, and mining, in order to provide insight into the many ways in which geoscientists contribute to the mineral industry. Abstract Cave mining methods (generically referred to as block caving) are becoming the preferred mass underground mining options for large, regularly shaped mineral deposits that are too deep to mine by open pit. The depth at which caving is initiated has increased over the past few decades, and operational difficulties experienced in these new mines have indicated the need for a much improved geologic and geotechnical understanding of the rock mass, if the low-cost and high-productivity objectives of the method are to be maintained and the mines operated safely. Undercuts (the caving initiation level immediately above the ore extraction level) are now being developed at depths of >1,000 m below surface, with the objective of progressively deepening to 2,000 and, eventually, 3,000 m. Many of the deeper deposits now being mined by caving have lower average metal grades than previously caved at shallower depths and comprise harder and more heterogeneous rock masses, and some are located in higher-stress and higher-temperature environments. As a result, larger caving block heights are required for engineering reasons; mining costs (capital and operating) are also escalating. In these deeper cave mining environments, numerous hazards must be mitigated if safety, productivity, and profitability are not to be adversely affected. Fortunately, potential hazards can be indicated and evaluated during exploration, discovery, and deposit assessment, prior to mine design and planning. Major hazards include rock bursts, air blasts, discontinuous surface subsidence, and inrushes of fines. These hazards are present during all stages of the caving process, from cave establishment (tunnel and underground infrastructure development, drawbell opening, and undercutting) through cave propagation and cave breakthrough to surface, up to and including steady-state production. Improved geologic input into mine design and planning will facilitate recognition and management of these risks, mitigating their consequences.

Geology and Mining: Narrow-Width (Vein) Mining and the Geologist

SEG Discovery ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 25-36
Author(s):  
Adrian Pratt
Keyword(s):  
Rock Mass ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Underground Mining ◽  
Mineral Exploration ◽  
Surrounding Rock ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Open Pit ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Narrow Width ◽  
Mine Development

Editor’s note: The Geology and Mining series, edited by Dan Wood and Jeffrey Hedenquist, is designed to introduce early-career professionals and students to a variety of topics in mineral exploration, development, and mining, in order to provide insight into the many ways in which geoscientists contribute to the mineral industry. Abstract Mining narrow deposits presents a discrete set of additional challenges to those common to most mining. Some challenges arise from the deposit’s width, its geometry—dip and planar continuity—and its interaction with the surrounding rock mass. The geology of the surrounding rock mass and associated physical properties of its geologic units and structures influence the application of mining method and mine design for both surface (open-pit) and underground mining. Successful mine development is the product of teamwork and depends on the collaboration, coordination, collective experience, and confidence of the team. Above all, it relies on relationships shared by the team members along the value chain. These relationships are extremely important, since miscommunication, misunderstandings, missing data, etc., can result either in lost opportunities to develop a better mine, or will load the project with unnecessary risk. This article is focused on underground mining of narrow-width deposits (veins) and the role of economic geologists in the definition and development of these deposits. The crucial importance of recognizing potential for value creation early in the life of a narrow-width mine project is highlighted, when an economic geologist is often a project’s key proponent. This role as the key proponent may change as a project progresses toward development, but early geologic contributions provide the foundation for narrow-width mine development.

scholarly journals Factors and Objectives of Sustainable Development at the Implementation of Digital Technologies and Automated Systems in the Mining Industry

2020 ◽  
Vol 174 ◽  
pp. 04023 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Myaskov ◽  
Igor Temkin ◽  
Sergey Deryabin ◽  
Dora Marinova
Keyword(s):  
Underground Mining ◽  
Mineral Exploration ◽  
Mining Industry ◽  
Open Pit ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Hydraulic Regime ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Initial Work ◽  
Main Production ◽  
Environmental Integrity

Mining inevitably violates the natural environment. The consequences of its functioning for the environment are diverse at different stages of the life of the enterprise. During mineral exploration, environmental damage is generally negligible, localized, and can be relatively easily repaired. Subsequent initial work, both with open pit and underground mining methods, has a more significant impact on the environment, but still less significant than with the development itself. During extraction and enrichment, the main production process, the most noticeable consequences are violation of land resources, pollution by wastewater, changes in hydraulic regime and composition of atmospheric air. The key factor, of course, is not how much land is used for any particular activity, but whether this use can be compatible with maintaining environmental integrity.

scholarly journals Positioning for success: building capacity in academic competencies for early-career researchers in sub-Saharan Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Merritt ◽  
H. Jack ◽  
W. Mangezi ◽  
D. Chibanda ◽  
M. Abas
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Capacity Building ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Training Experience ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Early Career Researchers ◽  
Academic Competencies ◽  
Sub Saharan

Background. Capacity building is essential in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to address the gap in skills to conduct and implement research. Capacity building must not only include scientific and technical knowledge, but also broader competencies, such as writing, disseminating research and achieving work–life balance. These skills are thought to promote long-term career success for researchers in high-income countries (HICs) but the availability of such training is limited in LMICs. Methods. This paper presents the contextualisation and implementation of the Academic Competencies Series (ACES). ACES is an early-career researcher development programme adapted from a UK university. Through consultation between HIC and LMIC partners, an innovative series of 10 workshops was designed covering themes of self-development, engagement and writing skills. ACES formed part of the African Mental Health Research Initiative (AMARI), a multi-national LMIC-led consortium to recruit, train, support and network early-career mental health researchers from four sub-Saharan African countries. Results. Of the 10 ACES modules, three were HIC-LMIC co-led, four led by HIC facilitators with LMIC training experience and three led by external consultants from HICs. Six workshops were delivered face to face and four by webinar. Course attendance was over 90% and the delivery cost was approximately US$4500 per researcher trained. Challenges of adaptation, attendance and technical issues are described for the first round of workshops. Conclusions. This paper indicates that a skills development series for early-career researchers can be contextualised and implemented in LMIC settings, and is feasible for co-delivery with local partners at relatively low cost.

scholarly journals Multi-Criteria Analysis for the Selection of the Optimal Mining Design Solution—A Case Study on Quarry “Tambura”

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (11) ◽  
pp. 3200
Author(s):  
Branimir Farkaš ◽  
Ana Hrastov
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Multiple Criteria Decision Making ◽  
Open Pit ◽  
Design Solution ◽  
Mine Design ◽  
Promethee Ii ◽  
Mining Design ◽  
Quarry Mine ◽  
Selection Of

Mining design is usually evaluated with different multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods when it comes to large open pit or underground ore mines, but it is not used on quarry sites. Since Croatia is mostly mining stone, the implementation of such methods in decision making of the quarry mine design is imperative but left out. In this paper, the PROMETHEE II and AHP decision-making methods are implemented on the quarry site to find out the best final quarry design contour. By implementing the MCDM methods, the best quarry model was chosen based on 22 different criteria parameters out of three final quarry designs. The chosen model is not only financially sound but also has the least environmental impact.

A Study on the Birefringence Measurement in Injection Molded Parts Using Two Different Laser Sources and R-G-B Separation of White Light

2006 ◽  
Vol 326-328 ◽  
pp. 187-190
Author(s):  
Jong Sun Kim ◽  
Chul Jin Hwang ◽  
Kyung Hwan Yoon
Keyword(s):  
White Light ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Main Idea ◽  
Injection Molding Process ◽  
Molding Process ◽  
Laser Method ◽  
High Productivity ◽  
Molded Parts ◽  
Injection Molded ◽  
Plastic Parts

Recently, injection molded plastic optical products are widely used in many fields, because injection molding process has advantages of low cost and high productivity. However, there remains residual birefringence and residual stresses originated from flow history and differential cooling. The present study focused on developing a technique to measure the birefringence in transparent injection-molded optical plastic parts using two methods as follows: (i) the two colored laser method, (ii) the R-G-B separation method of white light. The main idea of both methods came from the fact that more information can be obtained from the distribution of retardation caused by different wavelengths. The comparison between two methods is demonstrated for the same sample of which retardation is up to 850 nm.

Iron Ore Tailing as Addition to Partial Replacement of Portland Cement

2018 ◽  
Vol 930 ◽  
pp. 125-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciano Fernandes de Magalhães ◽  
Isabella de Souza Morais ◽  
Luis Felipe dos Santos Lara ◽  
Domingos Sávio de Resende ◽  
Raquel Maria Rocha Oliveira Menezes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Portland Cement ◽  
Iron Ore ◽  
Mineral Exploration ◽  
Planetary Mill ◽  
Open Pit ◽  
Partial Replacement ◽  
Compression Tests ◽  
X Ray Diffraction ◽  
Open Pit Mines ◽  
Iron Ore Tailing

The manufacture of Portland cement used in the production of concrete emits large amounts of CO2into the atmosphere, contributing to the increase of the greenhouse effect. The environmental impact generated by the mineral exploration activity is a problem of easy verification, especially in open pit mines. The present work evaluated the possibility of using iron ore tailing as an addition to the partial replacement of the cement in mortars. The iron ore tailings were processed by drying in oven (48h at 105oC) and milling in a planetary mill (10min at 300RPM), obtaining medium grain size of 14,13 μm. For the characterization, laser granulometry, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and differential thermal and thermogravimetric analysis (DTA / TGA) were performed. The sample is composed predominantly by quartz, hematite, goethite and gibbsite. After the characterization, the waste was used in the preparation of test specimens, with 10, 20 and 30% weight substitution of the cement. The composites were submitted to compression tests, with ages of 3, 7 and 28 days, using a strength rate of 0,25MPa/s. The mortars with 10, 20 and 30% of substitution presented resistance of 41.65, 36.26 and 31.64 MPa, being able to be characterized as category of Portland cement of resistance 40, 32 and 25 respectively. Considering the reduction of cement in the mortars produced, the results of compressive strength were relevant for the substitutions. The cements produced with the substitutions according to the Brazilian standards under the mechanical aspect can be classified as Portland cement.

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