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By A. D. Davis, C. J. Webb, C. S. Johnson, J. L. Porter

The abandoned Belle Eldridge Mine near Deadwood, South Dakota, is on land controlled by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) property. The mine produced primarily lead and zinc during the first half of the twentieth century. The BLM has expressed concern about acidic drainage as well as elevated arsenic levels in tailings and waste rock at the site. The mine site was evaluated for remediation in 1998 and 1999. Recent reclamation and remediation work included substantial regrading of waste rock, removal of material where metal loading were of concern, and re-routing of drainage from an adit. Trenching at the site shoed a greater volume than originally calculated during site characterization. Material was removed to a repository that was constructed at a nearby drainage divide. Because of physical hazards, the BLM has decided to remove some historic structures. However, a search of mine records and an inventory of archival materials were complete to preserve the history of the site.

Jan 1, 2002

By F Linares, B De Waele, K Bischoff, M Lacorde, G Loveday

Recent exploration has identified the presence of detrital iron deposits (DIDs) associated with banded iron formation (BIF) units in the north-west of the Congo Craton, Gabon. The regional geology comprises a complex of granitoids and gneisses assigned to the Archaean Chaillu Complex, within which older slivers of lower amphibolite-grade greenstones are preserved including muscovite-biotite-garnet-bearing felsic schist, amphibolite and BIF. These units are typically overlain by several metres of residuum comprising colluvium, eluvium and duricrust. The residuum is overlain by a regionally extensive loess cover from 2 m to 10 m thick.The DIDs occur within the weathered residuum as mostly unconsolidated gravels with lesser canga (CAN) duricrust draped over deeply weathered hematite. Head grades are in the range of 45 to 52 per cent Fe. Fresh BIF, located from 30 to 50 m below surface, is comprised of magnetite-quartz±amphibole. The detrital iron gravels are comprised of rod- and plate-shaped clasts of hematite (martite)-maghemite-goethite composition, in a ferruginous sand to clay-sized matrix. The DID form ridges and plateaus that coincide with magnetic highs defined using high-resolution ground magnetic surveys.The field relations and petrography indicate that the detrital iron accumulations are the result of weathering (including enrichment) and erosion of primary BIF. This includes removal of quartz, further oxidation and re-cementation of BIF to form ferruginous caprock. This cap and the in situ oxidised BIF were subsequently disaggregated and liberated, and further weathered to form the detrital iron accumulations.Metallurgical test work on bulk detrital iron samples has shown this material can be upgraded to lump and fines iron ore products with grades of 62 to 65 per cent Fe using simple scrubbing and wet screening, followed by dense media separation of the -1 mm fraction, with overall mass yields from 75 to 85 per cent. The test work indicates a high ratio of lump to fines products, sometimes exceeding 50:50.CITATION:De Waele, B, Lacorde, M, Bischoff, K, Loveday, G and Linares, F, 2017. Geological and metallurgical characteristics of banded iron formation associated detrital iron mineralisation in Central West Africa, in Proceedings Iron Ore 2017, pp 259–268 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jul 24, 2017

Sustainable development is a critical discussion topic in the mining industry today. The topic is necessarily broad and complex, covering an entire spectrum of related areas, from geology to end-use products. The objective of this keynote address is to focus on the chemicals and chemistry aspects - especially research and technology transfer - in sustainable mineral processing. Chemicals came to play a critical role in mineral processing during the last century, and they will play an equally vital role in confronting the sustainability challenges of the 21st century, particularly in the areas of greener chemicals, water efficiency and water resource management; waste reduction and remediation; minimising environmental impact, safety and health risks (meeting and exceeding the requirements of regulations); energy efficiency; and converting mineral resources into reserves. This keynote address argues that the current research framework is no longer adequate to serve the goals of sustainable mineral processing. The problems studied are often too narrowly defined or irrelevant, while the research efforts are fragmented and the methods and approach employed are often too reductionistic to produce useful knowledge. A new framework for research is needed. This address further argues that a new framework based on a holistic or systems approach can best tackle the challenges of sustainable mineral processing. Central tenets of this approach include a recognition that, in complex systems, the behaviour of the whole system is more than the sum of the individual contributions, and that interactions occur in real time, often in subtle and complex ways. The focus is thus on the behaviour of the whole system. Indeed, a comprehensive understanding of the system through large-scale measurements should precede a study of parts or of idealised models of the complex system. The result will be a sound knowledgebase, better solutions to the challenges of sustainable development, and improved technology transfer. Developing such a framework will pose a formidable challenge, requiring significant time and effort as well as a confluence of diverse specialties and strategic collaboration. Fortunately, recent developments in the context of reagent optimisation provide us with a prototype of a holistic approach. We can also draw upon methodological innovations in the biological sciences, where the critical need for a systems approach is well recognised and significant advances have been made.

Sep 13, 2010

Results of flotation tests on lead-zinc ore from Broken Hill, N.S.W., confirmed that flotation at pH 9 in the presence of cement gave poorer metallurgical results than flotation at pH 7. Additions of 2 kg/tonne wood raspings [e.g. blackbutt (Eucalyptus pilularis), blue gum (E. saligna), brushbox (Tristania conferta), or turpentine gum (Syncarpia laurifolia)l had little effect at pH 7 but greatly accentuated the deleterious effect of cement at pH 9. This was shown to be caused by e:xtractives (e.g. polyphenols and carbohydrate materials) derived from woods at pH 9. The proportion of extractives, as shown by DV absorbance spectra, increased with increase of pH and was affected by various salts.Additions of 1 kg/tonne Al2(S04)3.16H20 when cement or cement and wood were present showed that metallurgical results obtained by flotation were then very simHar to those in the absence of cement or wood or both. This was ascribed to lower pH values in the presence of aluminium sulphate and possibly to specific chemical effects.Additions of aluminium sulphate appear to offer an economic solution to the problem of treatment of ores contaminated with cemented fill at Broken Hill.

Jan 1, 1974

This evening I intend to explain the position of the gold mining industry in the light of post war trends and events.I propose initially to comment on gold production throughout the World and then proceed to the state of the industry in Australia, with an account of the efforts made within the industry to maintain levels of production. This will be followed hy a statement on assistance granted to the industry by Federal and State Governments.Annual World gold production is estimated at 51,000,060 fine ounces, made up as followsSouth Africa - 27,300,000 fine ouncesCanada 4,200,000 " "U.S.A. 1,500,000 " "Australia - 1,000,000 " " Others 5,000,000 " "----- 39,000,000 " "Estimated Russianproduction - 12,000,000 " "Total 51,000,000 " "The opening up of new highly payable mines during the post war years has contributed to the preponderence of production in South Africa.In 1962 some 24 new mines produced 73 per cent of South Africa's gold, and contributed almost 90 per cent to the industrial profits.At the same time, 20 old mines were struggling to main...

Jan 1, 1964

By Kenneth H. Johnston

This publication describes a thermal-recovery project and two waterflood projects in Carter, Garvin, and Stephens Counties, Okla., that will be visited during the 1966 annual tour by the Bureau of Mines in cooperation with the Kansas-Oklahoma Waterflood Association. Among the unique features of the projects arc (1) the movement of heavy (15° to 28° API gravity) crude oil through the reservoir and into the well bore with energy furnished by burning a portion of the crude oil therein; (2) the use of an inverted nine-spot pattern with dually completed injection wells, to produce oil from deep (8,200 to 10,200 feet) reservoirs; and (3) the flooding of five sand lenses separately by using controlled water injections through multizone completed injection wells. Discussion of the individual projects includes information on their early history, method of completing and operating wells, source and treatment of injection fluids, oil production decline curves, and the results obtained from the development.

Jan 1, 1966

By George A. Savanick

An experimental hydraulic jetting device intended to operate in a 16-in-diam borehole was designed, fabricated, and used to cut coal and simulated coal samples. This device consisted of two 0.107-in-diam nozzles that rotated in a plane perpendicuIar to a 50-inch length of high-pressure tubing. Experi¬ments were also conducted with stationary jets issuing from a single 0.142-in-diam nozzle. Numerous experiments were performed using systematic variations of jet parameters coupled with assessments of cutting rates. These Bureau of Mines tests showed that when operated at 4,000 psi pressure and a 40-gpm flow rate (1) the device can fragment coal up to a distance of 8 feet from the nozzle, (2) 4,000-psi jets cut more effectively than lower pressure jets with the same nozzle diameter, (3) stationary jets do not cut as effectively as moving jets, (4) interkerf breaking occurs when the kerf spacing is less than 2 inches, and (5) if the kerfs are spaced <1/2 inch, the jet is deflected and thereby reduces cutting effectiveness.

Jan 1, 1975

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Jan 1, 1975

It is a great honour to be privileged to address The Institute for a second time as President and I appreciate it more than I can say. Eight years ago in Hobart I tried to cover the development of the mineral industry in Tasmania. That was a general subject. Tonight I want to be more specific - I propose to talk to you about rutile.The choice of subject for a Presidential Address is never easy. One is addressing an informed audience and the best one can do is to try to crystallize a particular subject and to present it in a form that willbe of interest to those who listen.I looked carefully at the addresses given by our Presidents over the past seven or eight years. The titles are impressive, the content excellent, and the length, as published, much greater than I had hoped.It is therefore with some trepidation that I have chosen as a subject one only of the three crystal forms of titanium dioxide. This subject is not as limited as may at first appear.There are two aspects with which I can deal - the mineral itself, which has become familiar as the major product of the East Coast beach sand operations, and the lesser-known &quot;synthetic&quot; product, which is the major pigment in almost all the white paints in common use today, and in cosmetics and white-walled tyres and toothpaste, and even the better types of fine papers. The synthetic form of rutile is&apos; the &quot;whitest&quot;of white pigments.

Jan 1, 1966

By Kenneth H. Johnston

This publication describes a thermal-recovery project and two waterflood projects in Carter, Garvin, and Stephens Counties, Okla., that will be visited during the 1966 annual tour by the Bureau of Mines in cooperation with the Kansas-Oklahoma Waterflood Association. Among the unique features of the projects arc (1) the movement of heavy (15° to 28° API gravity) crude oil through the reservoir and into the well bore with energy furnished by burning a portion of the crude oil therein; (2) the use of an inverted nine-spot pattern with dually completed injection wells, to produce oil from deep (8,200 to 10,200 feet) reservoirs; and (3) the flooding of five sand lenses separately by using controlled water injections through multizone completed injection wells. Discussion of the individual projects includes information on their early history, method of completing and operating wells, source and treatment of injection fluids, oil production decline curves, and the results obtained from the development.

Jan 1, 1966

The paper reviews the results emanating from an experiment conducted in Bochum?Germany in which various international rope inspection authorities were requested to assess the conditions of a corroded rope sample as well as a rope sample containing internal fatigue breaks. Both samples were of the multi-layer low rotation construction.

Jan 1, 2000

By R. Schwarz, E. Pusch, A. Juch

"The paper describes in general the objectives, goals as well as theoretical background of "METSI"-project proposal submitted to German BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research). The METSI project is a starting point for technology and know-how transfer of German water management and water treatment technologies to South African Mining industry. "METSI" is Setswana, one of the eleven official languages in South Africa, and means "water". It stands also for "Management System for the Implementation of Environmentally Sound Water Supply Technologies in South African Mining Areas with Involvement of all Relevant Stakeholders". The project focuses on development, design and implementation of mathematical models that consolidate and evaluate existing data and generate substantiated projections of "water" amount and quality. METSI covers a wide range of scientific, technical, social as well as economic questions related to "water in mining"."

Jan 1, 2011

By L. F. Miao

Studies were carried out to investigate the ultimate soil pressure acting on pile(s) undergoing lateral soil movement in soft clay. A special apparatus has been designed to apply a uniform rectangular profile of lateral soil movement on the rigid pile(s) with pinned head and tip conditions to obtain the ultimate soil pressure. The piles were 16 mm (5/8 in) in diameter. For the pile group tests, the behavior of different number of piles (2, 3, 4, 6 and 9), pile arrangements and center-to-center spacings (3 and 6 diameters) were investigated. In this paper, the group factors of 11 combinations of number of piles, pile arrangements and pile spacings are presented. The group factors are given for individual piles in a pile group as well as for the entire group. Generally, the group factors of individual piles in a group varied significantly according to pile spacing in both directions, and pile arrangement; the group factor of the whole group reduced with an increasing number of piles, and increased with increasing pile spacing. For a pile group with the same number of piles but different pile arrangement, no significant difference was found in the group factors for the entire group.

Jan 1, 2008

To date Iron Monarch is the most important Australian source of iron ore and since HH5 has produced about 84 million tons of direct shipping ore containing 62 per cent iron and 3 per cent manganese.Previous geological work, mainly by Rudd, Edwards and Miles is reviewed and the results of later exploration by quarrying and drilling are discussed and modified interpretations of both stratigraphy and structure are advanced. Renewed study of the mineralogy of the iron ores is advocated.The Iron Monarch orebody lies on the up-thrown side of a major transcurrent fault that truncates it on its northern boundary. The nearby Iron Knob orebody is believed to occupy a horizon that is some thousand feet stratigraphically above Iron Monarch.The origin of the ore cannot be explained by any simple theory; development probably took place over a long period of time from Lower Palaeozoic to Tertiary.INTRODUCTIONIron Monarch orebody has supplied the Australian iron and steel industry with the greater part of its ironstone requirements since the establishment of the Newcastle steelworks in 1915. Annual production of direct-shipping ore has exceeded three million tons but declined slightly after 1956 when Iron Prince was brought into production. Total production of ore from Iron Monarch to the end of 1962 is about 84,000,000 long tons containing some 55,000,000 tons of metal.The deposit (Lat. 32&#176;44&apos;30&quot;S : Long. 137&#176;08&apos;30&quot;E) is 34 miles north-west of Whyalla, on the western shore of Spencer Gulf. A 42 in. gauge railway connects Iron Monarch and its associated small town of Iron Knob with Whyalla (Fig. 1).For the purpose of this paper Iron Monarch includes Iron Knob and the intervening jaspilite hill known as Substation Ridge, and the description of the general geology necessarily &apos;Assistant Chief Geologist, The Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd.This paper was presented at the Annual Conference of The Institute, 14-24th August 1968.

Jan 1, 1964

Tyre costs constitute 20-40 per cent of the operating cost of large haulage trucks, and tyre pressure maintenance is an important factor in minimizing costs.In the past, control over the hot (built-up) pressures of earthmover tyres has been inaccurate and inconsistent because it has not been possible, in a practical way, to measure the tyre&apos;s contained air temperature.A method for measuring this contained air temperature has now been devised using a bi-metallic probe thermometer inserted through the valve stem. Using these measurements in conjunction with a pressuretemperaturechart drawn up using the general gas equation, very accurate control over hot tyre pressures is now possible.

Jan 1, 1979

By R. J. Baumgartner

Sustainability issues are from rising interest and importance for the mineral industry worldwide. In order to bring them into management processes and to improve decision processes, economic, ecological and social aspects of products, services or technologies have to be assessed. In this paper, the concept of integrated sustainability assessment is presented. Each aspect is assessed with quantitative or qualitative methods. The results of these ecological, social and economic sub-assessments are integrated by the means of Fuzzy Logic in order to regard preferences of decision maker and circumstances of decision situation. An example demonstrates the application of this new instrument.

Jan 1, 2005

By J. A. Beukes, M. Marais

TICOR South Africa is a new titanium feed stock producer. In the Ticor South Africa plant the ilmenite feed to the smelter plant is roasted to enhance its magnetic properties. This allows for the magnetic separation of chromite from the ilmenite. The magnetization reaction relies on partial oxidation with both under- and over-oxidation causing insufficient magnetization. To subject the roaster plant feed material to the required physical conditions a circulating fluid bed (CFB) roaster is used. This paper describes the development of a laboratory model that will aid in the control of the CFB roaster.

Jan 1, 2003

By R. V. Ramani

Procedures have been developed which permit determining in either existing or new mines the optimum diesel equipment deployment schemes and the effect of. diesel exhaust on mine-air quality. Specifically, the following areas are covered in the report: 1. Description of diesel deployment schemes in four underground coal mines that were visited is provided. 2. Description of the analysis procedure to determine the number of shuttle cars required to maintain maximum theoretical continuous miner (or loader) production rates in typical room-and-pillar mining systems and of exhaust contamination resulting from the deployment of diesel powered shuttle cars are provided. Sensitivity analyses to determine the effect of changes in input variables on production and contaminant concentrations are also discussed. 3. Description of the analysis procedure to develop the locomotive operating parameters is provided. Assessment of both production performance as well as estimates of the magnitude of diesel exhaust contamination of the mine air are also made. 4. Recommendations for extensions of this research are outlined and include developing and testing procedures for 1) determining equipment duty cycles for the diesel equipment, and 2) studying the exhuast contamination of mine air on the basis of these duty cycles.

Jan 1, 1978

By Marcel M. Djivre

Electromagnetic wire rope testing is the only practical non-destructive method to evaluate the current condition of wire ropes in general, and in the mining industry in particular. The method has been successfully used worldwide for decades. In mining it has considerably improved the safety of operations. Yet, problems persist. In particular both the Loss-of-Metallic-Area (LMA) readings, as well as the Local Fault (LF) readings, as obtained by different instrument operators, were found to be unacceptably diverse. Consequently, large sums have been spent internationally, as well as in Canada, comparing a whole range of these instruments in an effort to rate their performance. The published results clearly confirmed operational experience, namely that the LMA and LF readings were, indeed, unacceptably diverse. Excellent pertinent conclusions were also published. In Canada the authors? conclusion was that while the divergence in the LF signal based results could, possibly, be attributed to both hardware and human-error related factors, the LMA signal related quantitative uncertainties were human-error related. Consequently, much attention was paid in Canada to developing novel control methods, namely computerized ones to replace the more error-prone analogue ones. In addition new sensor-heads were developed, both for portable as well as for permanent installation with remote control operations. While these efforts were of considerable benefit, the situation must again be carefully reviewed with very special reference to deep-level mining, now of immediate concern in Canada as well. In this paper the authors supply an overview of the results obtained by three of the four major international projects referred to previously. Relevant conclusions/comments are also restated. Moreover, specific recommendations are put forward as to how current problems might best be remedied.

May 1, 2004

By E. H. Illsley

This bibliography is the first report of a Bureau of Mines research project on thermoelectric materials. Interest in such research has increased because of recent success in the design of commercial products, including generators and refrigerators, using the principles of thermoelectricity. This success made possible by the discovery of semiconductors that have much higher [effincies] than the metals and alloys formerly studied. Thermoelectricity is a term that includes a large number of phenomena relating heat to electrical energy. However, the moat important applications arise from two effects discovered by Seebeck in 1822 and by Peltier in 1834. When pieces of two unlike materials are joined at their two ends to form a continuous circuit, both of these effects may be observed. If the two junctions are maintained at different temperatures, an electromotive force known as the Seebeck voltage is generated. If, on the other hand, a current is made to flow through the circuit, the junctions of the materials will be found to differ in temperature. This phenomenon is called the Peltier effect.

Jan 1, 1959