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By Paul C. Merritt

The story now unfolding on the Mesabi Range is more than just another chapter in the continuing history of iron mining. It is an epic of foresight, research and pioneering instinct just now culminating in the rapid growth of a new industry hardly more than ten years old. And that growth has been impressive. In the decade that has passed since Reserve Mining Co. blazed a trail as the first successful large- scale commercial taconite operation, the number of plants now existing or soon to be operating has grown to six. From Reserve's initial capacity of 3 million tons of pellets per year, total production capacity on the Range has surged to 31.5 million tons while capital investment has leaped from $300 million in 1955 to almost $1 billion today. During the past year alone, more than $500 million has been committed to these projects, an amount probably greater than that going into any other single mining area in the world. There is more yet to come.

Jan 10, 1965

By H. Y. Yancey, B. M. Bird

One of the problems studied by the U. S. Bureau of Mines in cooperation with the University of Washington has been the re-treatment of table middlings. Hydraulic classification has given the best results. Instead of using the classifier to prepare the feed to the tables, as has been the practice for many years in ore dressing, it is used to separate part of a middling product that cannot be re-treated successfully on the table. Middlings are desirable in a table plant because the separation according to specific gravity is incomplete; that is, in the products of the table there is always an overlapping of free particles of coal and refuse that can be distinguished with heavy liquids such as are used in the float-and-sink test. The causes of this overlapping may be divided into two groups, those outside the table separation itself and those inherent in the table separation. The first of these groups includes, among other causes, the following: (1) poor adjustments of the table, (2) overloading or underloading the table, (3) irregularities in the quantity and quality of the feed, (4) irregularities in the power and water supply, and (5) a vertical dancing motion of the table deck due to weak foundations. These causes of overlapping are largely unnecessary in a properly designed and constructed plant; but whenever they are present they materially affect the character of the middling product, and hence the problem of re-treatment. The other group includes three additional causes: (6) small differences in specific gravity between coal and impurities, (7) a size-specific-gravity relationship of the coal and refuse particles in the table feed such that the sizing action of the table opposes the separation according to the specific gravity, and (8) shapes of particles that prevent a separation. The sixth, small differences in specific gravity, may be a very important reason for an incomplete separation. The change in specific gravity from coal to shale is always gradual and the designation of one part as coal and another part as refuse is arbitrary. If some specific gravity, such as 1.45, is chosen as the dividing point between washed coal and refuse,

Jan 1, 1930

By Verne C. Fryklund, S. Warren Hobbs

The Coeur d'Alene district in the panhandle of Idaho is one of the major lead-zinc-silver producing areas in the world. The value of recorded production to date has exceeded $2 billion. Country rock comprises six formations of the fine-grained, highly siliceous, and slightly metamorphosed Precambrian Belt Series. Small stocks of monzonitic rocks and several varieties of dikes intrude the sediments. The district is at the intersection of a north trending major anticlinal uplift and the west northwest-trending Lewis and Clark line of which the Osburn fault is the dominant feature. The district structure is complicated and comprises folds, some of which are overturned, and a complex of faults of diverse ages and directions of movement. Late Cretaceous stocks but are also probably Cretaceous in age. The productive veins are localized within a series of 12 subparallel, straight mineral belts that trend approximately N65°W and that appear to be controlled by deep fractures in the basement rocks. The mineral belts are in two groups, separated by 15 miles of post-mineralization movement on the Osburn fault. Veins and ore shoots are variously disposed within each mineral belt. Many crop out at the surface, but others apex several thousand feet beneath it. Local controls that influence the position of ore shoots within the mineral belts include the brittle character of host rock attitude of bedding relative to the mineralized fracture, and the amount and direction of movement on faults. Depth appears to have had little effect on the occurrence or type of ore. Ore occurs in a series of steeply dipping replacement veins of relatively simple mineralogy. Six periods of mineralization, ranging from Precambrian to Tertiary in age, are recognized. The productive galena sphalerite-bearing and tetrahedrite-bearing veins-of the main period of mineralization-are younger than the

Jan 1, 1968

By D. A. J. Swinkels

The problem of determining oxygen levels in liquid steel to aid in deoxidation control has received general attention for a number of years. Work in this direction started at the B.H.P. Central Research Laboratories early in 1967 with an evaluation of sampling techniques followed by vacuum fusion analysis to determine the oxygen content of the samples (1). It was found that these techniques had a number of drawbacks if they were to be used for deoxidation control. The method of analysis was rather too slow to allow effective control and measured total oxygen level rather than dissolved oxygen. Furthermore, the results were found to be very variable due to slag entrainment in the samples. Attention therefore turned to the galvanic cell method using a solid oxygen ion conductive electrolyte such as cubic stabilised zirconia. The ionic conductivity properties of electrolytes such as (ZrO2) 85 (CaO).15 had been studied by a number of investigators and had already been applied to the measurement of oxygen activity in gases, in lower melting metals such as copper, lead, tin, silver, alkali metals and indeed the first studies in steel had been made (2,3). Since then the results of a number of studies in the development of an expendable oxygen probe for steel have been reported (4-9).

Jan 1, 1972

By R. V. Smith

The theoretical background for calculating friction factors for flow in gas wells by two methods is presented. The first method, requiring pressures, temperatures and specific volumes of the flowing fluids at various depths in the well bore, shows how the mechanical-energy-balance equation for vertical flow may be graphically integrated over the actual path of the expansion of the fluid in the well. Thus, assumptions regarding the effective temperature and effective compressibility of the fluid in the well are avoided. The second method presents an equation derived on a basis of the assumptions that both the temperature and the compressibility are fixed at constant effective values throughout the flowing column of gas. The second method provides a convenient and practical means of calculating friction factors for gas wells and lends itself readily to the problem of calculating subsurface pressures in a flowing gas well. The application of both methods to actual test data taken on a flowing gas well is illustrated in the paper. INTRODUCTION As friction factors for the producing strings of flowing gas wells cannot be measured directly and must be calculated from flow-test data, study of the methods of arriving at friction factors is a necessary adjunct to understanding the characteristics of flow in gas wells. There are two methods of calculating friction factors for gas wells; they differ from one another mainly in the treatment of the path of expansion of the fluid in the well. In the flowing well, the energy consumed in lifting the fluid from the bottom to the top of the well, overcoming the friction between the moving fluid and the pipe walls, and increasing the velocity of the fluid as it flows up the producing string is supplied by expansion of the flowing fluid. The available energy is determined by the expansion of the fluid that follows a path determined by conditions of temperature, compressibility and phase changes of the fluid during the expansion. A means of evaluating the available energy in a flowing gas well and determining the proportion of the available energy used in lifting the gas, overcoming friction, and increasing the velocity of flow is developed in this report. Knowing how much energy is consumed in overcoming friction makes it possible to calculate friction factors for given flow rates in given sizes of pipes in wells. Friction coefficients, as used in this report, are dimension- less proportionality multipliers used in the flow equations to satisfy the equality between the terms of the equation. The square root of the reciprocal of the friction coefficient is termed the friction factor. It has been known for many years that friction factors may be computed directly from mathematical formulas based on certain assumptions regarding the temperature and compressibility of the moving fluid in a well. A general equation is presented in this report without assumptions for vertical flow of fluids and a conventional-type equation is derived on the basis of assumptions that fix the temperature and compressibility at constant values. Accurate pressures at the sand faces in wells are required in the method of determining the productivity of gas wells, as outlined by Rawlins and Schellhardt1 in Bureau of Mines Monograph 7. Where measurements are not made with subsurface-pressure gauge; or static gas columns are unavailable, flowing pressures customarily are calculated at the sand face in the well by the use of the well-known Weymouth formula1. Natural gas engineers have realized that errors introduced by the use of friction factors as given by the Weymouth formula are relatively unimportant in testing low-capacity gas wells; they also know that such factors are important considerations in testing large-capacity gas wells. Accordingly. present research on the productivity of gas wells at the Petroleum Experiment Station of the Bureau of Mines, Bartlesville, Okla., is being directed toward measurement of the pressure loss due to friction in flowing gas wells. It is beyond the scope of this report to show how friction factors vary with rate of flow and in pipes of different diameters, as it is intended only to develop and illustrate the use of mathematical expressions for calculating friction factors from flow-test data. The equations presented apply only to turbulent flow in circular pipes. ENERGY RELATIONS FOR FLOW OF FLUIDS2 The concept of conservation of energy is usually the basis of any study of fluid flow through vertical pipes as in gas wells, horizontal pipe lines, or orifices. In deriving equations, the following symbols are used:

Jan 1, 1950

By B. H. Kear, S. M. Copley

Stress-stvain curves are presented for Ni3Al (y') cvystals in several ovientations, deformed in tension and compression at constant displacement rate, at temperatures from 70° to 2000°F. Both the yield stress and wovk havdening increase with temperature, with the magnilude of the effect dependent on ovientation. The yield stress maximum occurs at 1500°F in [001], at 1400°F in [011], and at 1200°F in [111]. The suppression of the yield stress peak in [011] and [111] orientatiorzs is due to the onset of cube slip, rather than octahedval slip, a1 elerated temperatures. The temperature and orientalion dependence of work hardening in nominal single slip orientations corvelates with changes in the CRSS ratio for octahedral slip and cube slip, in agreement with a model for work hardening based on pinning of screw dislocalions by cross slip from an octahedral plane into a cube plane. It is concluded that the unique plastic properties of y' have a decisive influence on both ductility and strength characleristics of y +y' nickel-base superalloys. It has long been recognized that the strength of y + y' nickel-base superalloys depends on the precipitation of the y' phase [basically Ni3(Al,Ti)]. This paper presents new data on the strength characteristics of single crystals of simple y' (Ni3Al), and forms the first step in a systematic program aimed at elucidating the mechanisms of hardening in the complex commercial alloys. 1) EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE Single crystals of off-stoichiometric NiA1 were grown from the melt under vacuum by a modified Bridgman method. The melt was poured into a preheated alumina mold and crystal growth was promoted from one end by gradient cooling. The crystals were homogenized by annealing in hydrogen at 2400° F for 72 hr followed by furnace cooling. Chemical analysis of samples taken from several crystals gave an average composition of 88.2 wt pct Ni. Spectrographic analysis gave as the principal impurities in weight percent— Si (0.02), Mg (0.01), Fe (0.02), Ti (0.002), Cu (0.008), and Co (0.03). Tensile specimens with specifications as in Fig. 1 were prepared by a series of operations involving electrical discharge machining, precision grinding, and electropolishing. Compression specimens with dimensions 1/4 by 1/4 by -3/4 in. were prepared in a similar manner, except for the initial shaping operation using a precision cut-off wheel/two-circle goniometer unit to give selected crystal orientations. Specimens were deformed in a Baldwin-Wiedemann testing machine with furnace attachment, using a strain rate of 5 x 10-4 sec-1. The strain measuring device consisted of extension arms attached to the tensile grips (or compression plattens) at one end and leading out of the furnace to an LVDT at the other. Temperature was controlled by a thermocouple placed in contact with the specimen. According to the known phase diagram for the Ni/A1 system,' when an alloy of the specified composition is cooled from the melt, primary y (nickel solid solution) dendrites grow at the expense of the liquid phase, which becomes enriched in aluminum. At the eutectic composition the remaining liquid freezes as a two-phase mixture of y + y' (Ni3Al). Upon further cooling, a solid state transformation occurs, involving the precipitation of y' in the primary dendrites, and the complete transformation of the eutectic mixture to massive y'. The as-cast structure consists, therefore, of y + y' dendrites with interdendritic regions of massive y', i.e., transformed eutectic, Fig. 2. 2) DISCUSSION OF RESULTS 2.1) Stress-Strain Curves. Fig. 3 shows tensile stress-strain curves for crystals in orientations close to [001] deformed at temperatures from 70° to 2000°F. Both the yield stress and total elongation are strongly temperature-dependent. At 70°F, easy glide is absent, and the work hardening coefficient BIT - G/300. At T > 1500°F, the negative slope of the stress-strain curves is due to pronounced necking in the crystals. The yield stress maximum at 1500° F corresponds with a minimum in the ductility, Fig. 4. The extensive duc-

Jan 1, 1968

By David T. Day

IN 1897 I published a proposed explanation t for the variation in color and specific gravity of Pennsylvania oils. A resume of this subject was also presented at the First International Petroleum Congress, in Paris, in 1900. Since that time much experimental work bearing upon this explanation has been carried on by myself, in the United States Geological Survey, and under my direction, by Dr. J. Elliott Gilpin, Marshall P. Cram, and 0. E. Bransky, at the Johns Hopkins University. The experimental results thus accumulated seem to throw considerable additional light upon the variations in color and specific gravity of petroleum, as found in different parts of the world, and also upon the variations in chemical composition. Therefore, it seems as if a, summary of the evidence thus obtained might be of value to those members of the Institute who are interested in the examination of oil-fields. The summary is here presented for that purpose. The phenomenon has often been observed in many oil-fields that oils of different color, specific gravity, and chemical composition may be found within short distances of each other. A conspicuous example of this is the occurrence at Jennings, Welsh, and Anse la Butte, La., of petroleum chemically somewhat similar to Russian petroleum; that is, characterized by the presence of naphthenes. Another characteristic is the presence of considerable percentages of asphaltic compounds, sufficient in quantity to disguise the presence of solid paraffin wax, and perhaps also to render that paraffin wax more soluble * Published by permission of the Director of the United States Geological Survey. 1 Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, vol. xxxvi., No. 154, pp. 112 to 115 (January, 1897).

Jun 1, 1910

By John D. Gill

THIS paper assumes the incontrovertible nature of the statement that the validity of competition in the nonnatural resource industries is established firmly on the rate and extent of the economic development of the United States. It then demonstrates the nonexistence of any condition within the petroleum industry that would invalidate the principle of competition as applied to it. It points to the benefits that competition has effected in the oil industry and the reasons why the practice of the competitive principle should continue to keep the industry virile and progressive in meeting the requirements of future generations for the kind of products natural to it. Finally, it pleads for a clearer view of the affairs of the oil industry by seeing them against a background of the whole economy. INTRODUCTION Even a few years ago there would have been only an academic reason for presenting before this Institute a paper on the validity of competition in the oil industry or any other natural resource industry; today there is no more practical subject for this body to consider. In social importance it transcends attempted solutions of perplexing technical problems; and even the numerous legal and economic problems that grow out of administration of state regulatory measures appear to be of secondary importance because they would cease to exist if competition were abolished. The aspiration of certain elements of the Federal Government to acquire control of the oil industry has long been suspected The vital need for petroleum in the national defense ... confirms my belief in the urgent need of Federal legislation to safeguard our petroleum supply through prevention of waste and by establishment and maintenance of sound economic conditions in the oil industry... . But also it may be dismissed with this mere mention of it because it predicates government control and the abandonment or broad reduction of competition on a war emergency. Clearly, the fight for a nation's life may justify a government's control over men and resources that would be abhorrent and economically enervating under conditions of national security. More pertinent to the present matter, because it appears expressive neither of a personal ambition nor of an emergency condition but rather of the long-range view of a certain school of conservationists, is the pronouncement of no less an authority than the Attorney General of the United States, who has been repeatedly quoted by the press as saying that the American Petroleum Industry constituted a case "where the principle of conservation of an exhaustible and irreplaceable resource should replace the principle of competitive exploitation." The significance of this statement in the light of the commonly accepted meanings of the " principle of conservation" and of the "principle of competitive ex-

Jan 1, 1941

By James H. Taylor

"Titanium is a widely distributed, dark grey metal1ic element found in small quantities in many minerals. It has no important uses." Happily, this early quotation proved to be wrung; titanium has, on the contrary, found a large number of very important uses. The error in the 1926 quotation illustrates the problems associated with forecasting the future development of any metal. 'The paper will nevertheless attempt to estimate what will happen to the European titanium industry over the coming decade with slightly more accuracy. It was not until 1955 that anything other than pilot plant facilities were installed in Europe. In 1955 IMI's plant in England, two plants in Germany, one in France and one in Sweden came into operation. All the companies associated with titanium installed melting furnaces but only IMI Titanium has forging and rolling facilities devoted solely to the production of titanium. The other firms rely on the use of equipment of their parent steel companies for processing the me1 ted titanium ingots.

Jan 1, 1982

In the Philippines, where distances are spoken of in terms off fight time, the Sipalay copper mines are two flight hours southeast of Manila on the island of Negros. After landing at the airport in Bacolod, it is then 170 km (106 milers) by surface transportation to Marinduque Mining and Industrial Corp.'s expanding copper operation. While copper deposits were discovered in the area in 1936-and one mine, the Binulig, began operations soon after-it wasn't until 1956 that stripping at Sipalay and construction of a 4000-t/d (4400-stpd) mill began. The mill went into operation in May 1957, and the first shipment of copper concentrate was made three months later.

Jan 8, 1978

By John A. Emery

The Pea Ridge iron ore deposit near Sullivan, Missouri, is a dike-like mass of magnetite enclosed in Precambrian porphyries. The ore body tops at the Precambrian surface at a depth of 1300 feet below the present surface and extends to an unknown depth. It dips nearly vertically, intersecting the dip and strike of the enclosing porphyries at an extremely sharp angle. Faulting, both pre- and post-ore, appears to be of minor consequence, and present knowledge indicates that no preferred structural conditions existed prior to emplacement. The ore body is composed of magnetite with specular hematite, quartz, apatite, and pyrite occurring as accessory primary minerals. Specular hematite in appreciable quantities occurs on parts of the cap and the footwall of the ore body. Fresh porphyry breccia is enclosed in the magnetite along the hanging wall and in the western portion of the ore body. Hanging-wall quartz-amphibole and footwall quartz-hematite occur as replacements of certain porphyries. Further alteration has caused sericitization of parts of these zones. The ore deposit is interpreted as having been formed essentially by a single injection of a magmatic differentiate with hydrothermal end phases forming the quartz-amphibole and quartz-hematite portions of the deposit.

Jan 1, 1968

By William H. Hallahan

The Friedensville zinc mine of The New Jersey Zinc Company is located about four miles south of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the Saucon Valley, an infolded and down faulted block of Cambro-Ordovician carbonate sediments surrounded by hills of pre-Cambrian gneiss and Cambrian quartzite except where breached by Saucon Creek at its entrance into the Lehigh River. The Beekmantown formation of lower Ordovician age is the host for zinc and limonite ores, the former occurring in the lower dolomitic portion thereof and the latter in the upper interbedded dolomite and limestone portion of the section. The Beekmantown is overlain unconformably by the Jacksonburg of middle Ordovician age and according to Miller (2) underlain conformably by about 2500 feet of Cambrian dolomites and 200 feet of the basal Cambrian Hardyston quartzite. Igneous rocks, younger than the Cambro-Ordovician carbonate rocks, are absent in the vicinity of the ore deposits. The major structure is a N60°E-trending saddle-shaped doubly plunging anticline overturned to the north. A syncline lies to the north of the anticline. A thrust fault of substantial displacement repeats the south limb of the anticline. The ore consists of sphalerite and pyrite, along with gangue dolomite and quartz, filling and replacing the sedimentary type matrix of a strata-bound solution collapse breccia in the dolomitic portion of the lower Beekmantown. This breccia was produced in pre-Jacksonburg time as a consequence of uplift, erosion, and development of a karst topography and subsurface drainage system in the Beekmantown. Deposits of both zinc and limonite are present on the vertical north limb, on the crest and on the gently dipping (25°) south limb of the Friedensville anticline; consequently, there is no preferred structural setting for mineralization. Rather this distribution supports the view that the folding is post-ore. Features confirming this view are the development of flow cleavage in the breccia matrix, the deformation of some of the sphalerite, and the fracturing of the pyrite mineralization therein. There is nothing to indicate that the age of mineralization is other than Ordovician and older than Taconic deformation. In the absence of intrusive igneous activity younger than the ore host, the writer suggests that submarine volcanic exhalations associated with the volcanic activity recorded in the eastern eugeosynclinal facies of the Ordovician may be the source of the metal ions.

Jan 1, 1968

By T. Egleston

THE works of the Ore Knob Copper Company are situated in the county of Ashe in the northwestern part of the State of North Carolina, about ten miles from the Virginia line, at an elevation of 4600 feet above the sea. The nearest railroad station is at Marion, Smythe County, Virginia, about forty-five miles distant. The roads from the railroad to the works have been constructed by the company for the transportation of their material, and are very hilly, and in certain seasons of the year in bad repair. Transportation is therefore always limited and never easy, although it is done by contract at a very low price. The main difficulty with the transportation is not so much its cost as the fact that it puts a limit to the production of the works. These unfavorable conditions make it necessary for the owners of the mine to smelt their ores and to send to market nothing except the metal, which alone will bear the cost of transportation. The mine was opened previous to 1860, but has only been worked systematically during the last five or six years. The vein is a fissure vein from ten to twenty feet in thickness in the gneiss of the

Jan 1, 1882

By T. Egleston

The works of the Ore Knob Copper Company are situated in the county of Ashe in the northwestern part of the State of North Carolina, about ten miles from the Virginia line, at an elevation of 4600 feet above the sea. The nearest railroad station is at Marion, Smythe County, Virginia, about forty-five miles distant. The roads from the railroad to the works have been constructed by the company for the transportation of their material, and are very hilly, and in certain seasons of the year in bad repair. Transportation is therefore always limited and never easy, although it is done by contract at a very low price. The main difficulty with the transportation is not so much its cost as the fact that it puts a limit to the production of the works. These unfavorable conditions make it necessary for the owners of the mine to smelt their ores and to send to market nothing except the metal, which alone will bear the cost of transportation. The mine was opened previous to 1860, but has only been worked systematically during the last five or six years. The vein is a fissure vein from ten to twenty feet in thickness in the gneiss of the

Jan 1, 1882

By Gordon MacVean

THE adoption of rock dusting, as a safety measure, has made notable progress in the West Virginia coal mines since May, 1925. At that time there were but two mines in the State that were thoroughly rock dusted, mines No. 2 and No. 12 of the Boone County Coal Corp., at Sharpless. Since then it is probable that 75 per cent of the coal operators in the State have given consideration at one time or another to rock dusting. This growth of interest followed the meetings of the various mining institutes all over the country, during the summer of 1925, at which papers were presented, drawing the attention of the coal mining operators to the merits of this safety measure. Yet outside of the experience with rock dusting at the Old Ben Coal Corp., of Southern Illinois, and the Carbon Fuel Co., of Rains, Utah, there had been no actual occurrence in the coal mines of the United States, which could be taken as positive evidence of the efficacy of rock dusting in the prevention of the propagation of coal dust explosions. The U. S. Bureau of Mines, however, had run innumerable tests under conditions which closely approximated actual coal mining conditions and had clearly shown that rock dusting was effective.

Jan 1, 1926

By Oliver Bowles

DELICATE PLANTS are now put to bed for the winter under glass-wool or rock-wool blankets. Thus arise new and unexpected uses for non-metallic materials and rocks and, at the same time, certain unique uses are fading out; for instance, the Italians have taken steps to bar the use of salt for money in Ethiopia. Novel sources of supply find a place in the record of recent achievements as exemplified in the migration of the frontiers of industrial mineral exploitation beyond the land area of the earth to include the ocean. Salt, of course, has been recovered from the sea for years but the treatment of enormous quantities of sea water for bromine has lately added to the importance of the ocean as a reservoir of mineral wealth. Increased use of non-metallic minerals in the commercial and economic life of the country is reflected in the wide scope and activity of the Industrial Minerals Division of the Institute. The outstanding recent achievement of the Division is the publication of a 955-page volume on industrial minerals and rocks, comprising 48 commodity chapters each written by an authority on the subject.

Jan 1, 1938

By George H. Deike

DURING the past year a survey was conducted by the Committee on the Promotion of Student Interest in Coal Mining to determine whether the program as laid down in past years was operating effectively. It is a source of satisfaction and pleasure to be able to report considerable headway among operating companies in putting cooperative scholarship plans into operation. In previous committee reports the pioneer work along this line by Eugene McAuliffe, president of the Union Pacific Coal Co., has been cited. That Company now has in its employ, in responsible positions, three men who received their education under such scholarship plans. One student under a similar plan is now studying at the Colorado School of Mines.

Jan 1, 1942

By M. R. Geer

Coal washing assumed an important role in the mining industry of the Pacific Northwest long before washing practice became firmly established in the Appalachian field. A Scaife washer was operated in the state of Washington in 1887; and by 1927, the fist year for which complete statistics were compiled, nearly a third of the state's coal production was washed, in comparison with only about 5 pct for the country as a whole. Mechanical preparation was adopted in Alaska in 1922 in a plant constructed by the United States Navy at Chickaloon to provide bunker coal for naval forces operating in northern waters. Many of the coal beds mined in Washington and Alaska contained more impurities than those mined elsewhere, and this circumstance contributed to the early interest in mechanical cleaning. A much more important factor, however, was the inclination of the coal beds. With steeply pitching beds, hand sorting by the miner at the face is impossible; consequently, all material must be loaded and dealt with on the surface, just as is now proving the case with mechanical mining of flat beds. Thus "full-seam" mining afforded the same stimulus to the early development of coal washing in the Northwest that - it is providing under mechanization in the rest of the country today.

Jan 1, 1949

By Everett D. Jackson

The largest deposits of chromite in the United States occur in tabular layers in the lower part of the Stillwater Complex, Montana. Nearly 900,000 long tons of chromite concentrates have been produced from mines and mills in this area, and reserves equivalent to more than 2,500,000 long tons of Cr2O3 remain in the ground. Layered concentrations of chromite (known as chromitite zones) occur only within olivine-rich layers of the Peridotite member of the Ultramafic zone of the Stillwater. As many as thirteen chromitite zones, lying conformably one above another, have been found, but only five of them are thick enough to be of any conceivable economic interest, and only two of them have been mined to date. Individual chromitite zones can be recognized by their distinctive internal character and by their stratigraphic position in the Peridotite member. The chemical composition of chromite varies consistently between and within the different chromitite zones. The zones range in thickness from about an inch to more than 12 feet, and the Cr2O3, content of their chromite ranges from 36.6 to 49.2 weight per cent. In any given area, the G chromitite zone is the thickest, but the chromite of the H chromitite zone has the highest grade. Laterally, the thickness of the chromitite zones is related to the thickness of the Peridotite member; in general all are thicker in the eastern part of the Stillwater than in the western part.

Jan 1, 1968

By D. E. Menzie, D. L. Dauben

This paper discusses the physical parameters involved in the slow flow of high molecular weight polymer solutions in porous media. The interacting effects of polymer properties and porous media properties on flow performance are considered. Experiments were conducted with the polyethylene oxides, with molecular weights ranging from 200,000 to over 5,000,000. Frontal advance velocities ranged from I to 30 ft/day. The porous matrix consisted of a flow cell packed with glass beads. Polymer solutions were characterized by viscosity and normal stress measurements. Under certain conditions, unexpectedly high flow resistance was observed. This behavior was observed to be a function of flow rate, pore size, polymer molecular weight and concentration. The polymer solutions exhibit "dilatant" flow behavior in porour media in contrast with the pseudo-plastic behavior in simple flow systems. A theoretical ex-planation of such behavior is presented. INTRODUCTION The use of polymers in the injected water of a waterflood increases oil displacement efficiency by reducing the mobility (k,/pu) of the driving phase. A reduced driving phase mobility results in improvements in the areal sweep efficiency and in the vertical coverage in stratified reservoirs. This mobility reduction may be achieved by a permeability reduction, a viscosity increase or by a combination of the two. Early attempts at increasing the injected water viscosity were not successful because of the poor economics involved. The use of such materials as glycerin, sugar or glycols to increase water viscosity was not economically feasible. Attempts in using certain naturally occurring polymers were not too successful because of the high polymer losses to the rock. A high molecular weight, partially hydrolyzed polyacry-lamide was introduced 3 years ago as a waterflood additive.',' Initial work by Pye' indicated that the presence of these polymers in dilute concentrations decreases the water mobility 5 to 20 times more than would be expected from measurements of the solution viscosity. Such an effect would be of obvious economic value since only a small polymer concentration would be required to accomplish a large reduction in water mobility. This research was designed to study the basic flow mech anisms of polymer solutions in porous media. The interacting effects of polymer properties and porous media properties on flow performance are considered. This study indicates some of the conditions under which these interactions can lead to significant mobility effects. is valid only for Newtonian fluids. For polymer solutions and other non-Newtonian fluids the equation must be modified to consider that viscosity is a variable quantity. Modification of the Darcy equation to include non-Newtonian effects has been the subject of several recent investigations."" The modifications generally adopt a rheological model. such as an Ellis or Dower law model. to Dorous media by defining some characteristic channel radius. Most of these studies showed the porous media flow behavior to be predictable from viscometric data. Investigations involving the flow of high molecular weight polyacrylamide solutions through cores have generally encountered the high flow resistances reported previously by Pye. This high flow resistance has generally been attributed to an in-depth permeability reduction, as evidenced by a reduced permeability to water which has displaced polymer solution from the porous media. Marshall and Metzner" report high flow resistances, which they attribute to viscoelastic effects. In this paper, the effects of polymer molecular weight, pore size, flow rate and concentration are considered. The polymers used are the polyethylene oxides known as Poly-ox. This class of polymers was used because of its availability in a wide range of molecular weights and because of its known ability to propagate well through porous media. THEORY PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF POLYMER SOLUTIONS The polymer molecule dissolves in water by means of hydrogen bonding, but retains some of its own structural identity while in solution. Nonionic polymers, such as polyethylene oxide, are generally considered to have a random coiling configration. This type of molecule has the ability to "sequester" or hold a large volume of solvent within its coils in a manner similar to that of a sponge. The random coil is easily deformed and under an applied stress