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By M. J. S. Innes

Abstract This paper is an account of an investigation made by the Dominion Observatory with a gravity meter and magnetometer over sulphide concentrations at East Sullivan, Val d'Or, Que., in June, 1947. The topographic relief over the area does not exceed 20 feet. The overburden varies from 0 co 50 feet. The west orebody had been outlined by extensive drilling. The average density contrast between the sulphide body and surrounding rocks is 0.5. Two hundred and sixty gravity and one hundred and ninety magnetic stations were observed. The results are shown on contour sketches. A derailed account is given of the methods employed to reduce the gravity observations. The survey shows that both gravimetric and magnetic methods are useful in delineating sulphide deposits under the conditions in which they occur at East Sullivan. The results indicate that the buried contact of the syenite intrusive southeast of the orebody could be traced with the gravimeter and chat the magnetometer was of little value for that purpose. Gravity anomalies due to the varying depths of overburden are negligible as compared to the magnitude of the total anomalies. Introduction The project was first suggested at a meeting of the Associate Committee on Geophysics of the National Research Council in September, 1946. At that time it was pointed out that the accuracy and speed of operation of the new gravity meters made them of special importance for geophysical prospecting and it was highly desirable to have an objective test of the performance of an instrument of this kind in delineating an orebody of known dimensions and density characteristics. Several years ago, a private company did some work with a gravimeter over the Amulet deposits, near Noranda. Unfortunately, the topography there is rather rugged, with hills and ravines exceeding 100 feet, so that the topographical effects rendered it impracticable to distinguish between anomalies due to the sulphides and those due to surface irregularities. An orebody of a typical nature, where the disturbing topographical corrections were not excessive, was therefore sought.

Jan 1, 1949

By W. G. Scott

IT IS APPROPRIATE that your Institute should have chosen, for its 1956 Annual General Meeting, the Capital City of a province which is making such rapid advances in mining. The railway industry is proud to be playing an active role in this development, expenditures on equipment and railway construction in the Province of Quebec alone in recent years being in ?excess of a quarter of a billion dollars. In looking up some background material for this address I ran across a definition of a mine by Mark Twain, the great American humorist, which I thought might amuse you. He said that a mine was "a hole in the ground owned by a liar". I am sure that if he were alive to witness the enormous value attached to Canada's mineral resources today he would quickly change his definition. Canada's postwar record of mining development has been staggering in its variety and enormity. Historically, only the ?construction of our transcontinental rail ways outranks the largest of three of these development projects - the aluminum undertaking at Kitimat; the Quebec-Labrador iron ore deposits ; and the petroleum and natural gas developments in Wes tern Canada.

Jan 1, 1956

By B. I. Boyko

As part of the Ministry of the Environment's Resource Recovery Program, the Province of Ontario has constructed a $13 million "Experimental Plant for Resource Recovery" in Metropolitan Toronto. The technology and unit operations involved in the processing of municipal solid wastes at a rate of 40 tons per hour at this facility are reviewed. Shredding, air separation and classification, screening, magnetic separation and composting are some of the operations featured at this plant. Recoverable commodities expected include paper, ferrous metals, an air-classified light fraction (shredded paper and film plastic), glass and compost. Existing and potential markets for these materials are discussed.

Jan 1, 1978

By S P. Giambra

The 50,000-ton-per-day Concentrator and Crushing Plant, complete with its related water supply, tailings disposal and concentrate handling systems, was started up in a five-month period, with the entire plant obtaining its design capacity six months after the first mill became operational. Individual mill lines, with their spiral circuits, achieved design capacities within a week after the first treatment of ore through each mill. Construction and start-up proceeded together in many areas of the plant, and considerable organization and cooperation between the Owner, the Engineer and the Contractors permitted a smooth transition from construction to operation. PLANT DESCRIPTION THE Carol Lake Plant of the Iron Ore Company of Canada l1as been well described in various technical magazines. The purpose of this paper is to present a brief outline of the start-up of the con-centration complex. This start-up was accomplished in a period of five months, with the plant producing one million tons of concentrate and achieving its design-rated tonnage less than six months after the first ore was treated.

Jan 1, 1963

By S. Banisi, M. Maleki-Moghaddam

Direct observation of charge shape and its motion in industrial mills is not possible; therefore, a combination of analytical and physical studies is used to determine charge trajectory. Software packages, which predict charge motion consider only the outermost layer of charge (single ball) and ignore the charge and the interactions of grinding elements. In the new version of the GMT (Grinding Media Trajectory) software, the effect of liners specification and bulk load on charge shape and trajectory are considered. The charge trajectory was measured in a laboratory mill with the diameter of 100 cm and length of 21.5 cm with the transparent end and compared with that of the old version of GMT. Four types of polyurethane rings were accurately machined to scale down the liners arrangements at two industrial mills. The model mill was operated at 55, 70 and 85% of the critical speed for five levels of mill filling (10, 15, 20, 25% and 30% by volume). The experiments indicated that the end walls effect was negligible for the model mill with the length of 10.8 cm and beyond. The proposed relationships to correct the trajectory and charge shape were validated by using the new liner of the Gol-E-Gohar iron ore company AG mill. The positions of shoulder, toe, toe departure and impact points were predicted with the relative errors of 5, 0.7, 2 and 0.2%, respectively. The GMT software was updated with the new relationships. The results of GMT simulation indicated that when the lifter face angle increased from 7 to 30°, the distance between the charge impact point and the toe decreased from 40.1 to 11.2° for 30% filling. The change in the position of the impact point meant increasing the probability of charge impacting the toe, not the liner which favored more efficient comminution practice.

Jan 1, 2016

By Donald L. Mordell

Introduction A very large part of the world's fuel resources are in solid form, as various grades of ?coal, but an increasing proportion of fuel demands on this Continent and else-where are having to be met by liquid fuels. Convenience and, in many cases, cost weigh heavily in favour of the liquid: fuels, and there are many fuel burning applications where the use of coal would be impractical, such as for automotive or air transport. By extrapolating the present trends one might conclude that, in future years in Canada and the United States, coal will be used only in a few power stations close to coal fields. If such a state of affairs should arise, it will obviously prove embarrassing to those accustomed to make their livelihood from the winning and marketing of coal, but it is perhaps not so obvious that it must also prove an embarrassment to the nation. The major reasons for this are two in number. Firstly, if present coal production is to be replaced by oil production, a large capital expenditure is necessary, which must inevitably be paid by the consumer; and secondly, in times of emergency, large amounts of oil fuels are required for military purposes which cannot be achieved with solid fuels. It is obviously unwise, therefore, to discontinue the use of coal for those non-military jobs that it can do. If we examine the major fuel markets we find that there are three: Domestic heating Steam generation Transport by air, sea, and land For domestic heating, the extreme convenience of oil, in spite of its greater cost, has captured much of the coal market.

Jan 1, 1952

By John I. Sharpe

Masses of pyritic copper and zinc ores are entrapped along the contact zone between two volcanic groups in the Matagami area. The upper limits of the sulphide concentrations tend to form concordant contacts against lava or cherty tuffite units of the younger group; the lower extremities tend to either follow transverse structures or merge with zones of dispersed sulphides. The sulphides are deformed and intruded by folded dykes. Close relations between metallization boundaries and volcanic lithology and stratigraphy, and a preliminary investigation of the fabrics and crystallization temperatures of the sulphide masses, suggest that the copper and zinc (but; not necessarily all the iron sulphides) were emplaced at h1gh temperatures during volcanism in near-surface lithological-stratigraphic traps. Introduction T HE Matagami area is centered 120 miles north of the Val d'Or and Noranda camps in north-western Quebec. For the present purpose, it is considered to comprise a 155-square-mile area in Isle-Dieu, Galinee and Daniel townships which encompasses the main sulphide masses. Airborne geophysical surveys within this area in 1956 led to the discovery of a large sulphide body -the.

Jan 1, 1965

Presentation Outline ERM ? corporate profile Background to sustainability reporting GRI G3 Guidelines (Oct 2006) Best practice examples Contact information ERM ? corporate profile Over 35 years of experience World?s largest all-environmental consultancy* 130+ offices in 40+ countries; 3,200+ professional staff Worked with >50% of the Global Fortune 500 (FY07) Annual turnover > US$500 M (FY07) 2008 Environmental Advisor of Year** Offices/Staff ? Canada (5/50) and US (65/1,350) *Source: Engineering News Record: July 2, 2007 ** Source: Acquisitions Monthly: December 2007

May 1, 2008

By Clemens Kuhnert

"Nickelhütte Aue GmbH is specialized in the recycling of waste materials containing non-ferrous metals. We treat nickel, copper, cobalt, vanadium, molybdenum and precious metal containing materials like spent catalysts, ashes, dusts, grindings, liquids, slurries and sludge's as long as they contain one or a combination of the above mentioned metals. In our pyrometallurgical works we produce non-ferrous metal concentrates suitable for further treatment in our hydrometallurgical plant where we refine Ni-, Cu-, Co- and V-chemicals. Our production is based on synergy effects due to the combination of pyro- and hydro-metallurgy. As an example we can mention our heat recovery system and internal recycling of by-products. Furthermore, the use of alternative fuels instead of fossil fuels contributes to the economic and environ-mentally friendly treatment system.INTRODUCTION Nickelhütte Aue GmbH (NHA) can look back on nearly 400 years of tradition as a pyrometallurgical works and recycling company. The existence since its foundation in 1635 as a blue dye works shows responsible and successful action in the past. Therefore, we see highest customer service, minimization of interferences with nature by closing material cycles and maximized health and occupational safety protection by avoiding injuries and diseases, still as our future duties. These duties are evaluated and monitored by an integrated management system that meets the standards of DIN EN ISO 9001, 14001, 50001 and BS OHSAS 18001. We commit ourselves to the observance of all juridical and customized demands. The management and the department managers perceive their model function. We require responsible action from all employees. To protect the continuity of our enterprise, we will also perform in future continuous improvement of products and their quality, as well as steady progress in the areas of environment protection, health protection and industrial safety. Equally the effectiveness and propriety of the management system is checked and developed regularly. In order to obtain the objectives resulting from this policy, our company determines activities and measures by involving all employees."

Jan 1, 2017

By E. Lee Cameron

Summary Records of the past show that the first mineral production in what is now the Province of Manitoba consisted of salt, obtained about the year 1800 by the evaporation of brine. Also at an early time in our history, the Ordovician limestone at St. Andrews Locks, East Selkirk, and other localities was quarried for use as building scone in the construction of forts and fur trading posts. Both salt and building stone are still produced in Manitoba, although not from the original sources. In addition, there is now a substantial production of a variety of other industrial minerals and their products such as lime, crushed stone, gypsum, peat moss, and bentonite. The annual dollar value of production of the industrial mineral industry in Manitoba is today greater than at any time in our past and is derived from a greater variety of products. At the present time, exclusive of the various gravel pits operated by the Provincial Department of Public Works, twenty companies operating thirty-four separate pits, quarries, or mines are producing industrial mineral raw materials in Manitoba. This paper attempts to outline the development of the industry from its start about 1800 to the present, giving general information on the various materials produced. Some suggestions regarding the possibilities of establishing new industries based on other raw materials are given at the end of the paper.

Jan 1, 1949

By G. Itoh, S. Fukasawa

The Al-Zn-Mg alloys have been known to be susceptible to stress corrosion cracking (SCC), which is based on intergranular cracking arisen from hydrogen embrittlement (HE). The mechanism of HE has not been fully understood yet. In order to elucidate the mechanism of HE, we need to investigate the behavior of hydrogen in the alloys. In this paper, behavior of hydrogen in an Al-5.8%Zn-2.4Mg alloy was investigated by means of hydrogen microprint technique, a method to visualize location of hydrogen emission from specimen surface as silver particles. One side of the tensile test pieces was electrolytically polished and then covered with photographic emulsion. Hydrogen was pre-introduced into the test pieces from opposite side by cathodic electrolytic charging for 30min. Then, the test pieces were stretched with continuing the charging. After that, the specimen was fixed, rinsed, dried and observed with a scanning electron microscope. As a result, silver particles were observed on some grain boundaries.

Jan 1, 2015

By D. Ofstie, B. Kargutkar

BIM, or Building Information Modeling, is transforming the way metallurgical facilities are built, operated and maintained. BIM provides a digital representation of the facility, complete with all physical and functional characteristics - enabling collaborative planning, concurrent design, construction simulation, sustainable operations and predictive maintenance through a connected information model. Building on experience gained in other industries, Hatch is aggressively applying the BIM process to the mining & minerals processing industry to address inefficiencies inherent in traditional document-based information management. Intelligent 3D models support real-time quantity forecasting and cost trending by commodity type and construction work package. By linking procurement and schedule data, material availability and constructability reviews are visualized to verify construction critical path, ensure work front safety and minimize craft downtime. The BIM digital information model connects engineering, construction, commissioning and vendor data, aiding timely asset-centric handover to plant operating and maintenance systems.

Jan 1, 2015

By Glenn Davis

In the world of large scale open pit mining, the majority of a mines operating cost is tied to the removal and transportation of the overburden waste material. Typically, many large haul trucks are employed to transport this overburden from each excavating face. The trucks transfer the waste material from deep within the pit to waste dumps on the surface incurring significant costs in operators, road construction and maintenance, vehicle maintenance staff and support facilities, fuel, tires, and spare parts, as well as the capital cost of the truck fleet itself. In addition, the haulage of the actual mined material carries similar operational costs. In both cases, these costs grow as the mine face advances and pit haulage distances increase. Reducing truck haulage is one key to the success of the Dual Truck Mobile Sizer (DTMS). Being the world?s first fully mobile truck dump station, transportation costs can be significantly reduced as the mine face advances. Furthermore, when used in conjunction with a shiftable face conveyor and a mobile overland hopper, substantial cost savings can be achieved. The mobility of the system allows for the considerable reduction in the haul truck fleet. Overall mine site emissions levels are greatly reduced by the fleet elimination, as well as keeping the majority of the hauls on a flat grade within the pit. Emission levels on a typical truck will dramatically spike as the angle and the length of the haul are increased. Moreover, comparing diesel engines versus electric powered conveyors to move the material contributes to the realized savings.

May 1, 2010

By S. Vézina

"Environmental issues have evolved considerably over the last two decades. The main contributing factors, to name a few, have been the changing values of modern societies, the globalization of trade and its linkage to environment, evolution and accessibility of information/ communication technologies, better educated populations, climate change, longrange transport of toxics, and the increasing influence of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and multistakeholders.As well, environmental management of mining operations had to be realigned in order to meet these new realities and to respond to more elaborated regulations oriented towards sustainability. Environmental management systems (EMS) have been introduced not only to meet the assurance of conformance to regulations but also to prevent pollution and to apply the continuous improvement of mining processes. EMS models have been developed and certification to international standards (e.g. ISO 14 001) is a common practice.Globalization has imposed challenges and additional requirements to environmental management. Developing a mine in emerging countries implies dealing with international agencies, local communities, and a variety of government infrastructures to obtain a “license to operate.” This paper presents the structure of Cambior’s EMS and how it was adapted and implemented in the company’s operations in South America."

Jan 1, 2006

By W. E. Oching, M. M. Ghomshei

Attracting and retaining workers in mining industry has become an uphill battle to many mining companies. As workers with significant experience retire, it is getting more difficult to attract not only new workers but also top talent to the mining industry to replace professionals exiting the workforce. To make matters worse, students’ enrolment in the post-secondary mining programs in Canada and USA is continuously declining year after year for reasons not directly linked to job market. This raises a question of how can the future needs of mining be met? This paper focuses on avenues for collaboration of industry and educational institutions to meet the current and future needs of mining. It provides effective approaches that mining institutes can engage with program advisory committees, role of the mining industry in supporting both faculty and students, how to harness the benefits of diverse workforce in the country and use of innovative technologies to attract young workers in mining. This work presents Human Resources (HR) professionals with tools that they can use to hire and retain skilled workers with strong interest to work in the mining industry. It also provides HR professionals with an opportunity to re-evaluate their restructuring practices during economic downturns as they reduce number of employees on temporary or permanent basis. The paper stresses the need of working together of the mining stakeholders including mining industry, academic institutions, First Nations’ communities and provincial(state) and federal governments to meet the current and future demands of mining as the industry experiences shortage of labour and low students’ enrolment in post-secondary mining programs. It is shown that mining educational institutes can enhance their programs and recruitments through establishing a better communication with all stakeholders. This communication can be facilitated by creating a national advisory board, to work with all mining programs at the national level for sustainable mining.

Jan 1, 2023

By J. L. Wilson

"Many modern concentrators with VSD driven SAG mills still rely on the control room operator to manually adjust the speed in reaction to increasing bearing pressure. All too often, the problem with this strategy is by the time the operator reacts with a sudden speed increase, the SAG Mill is likely already on its way to loading up. To assist the new operators, the SAG Mill at B2Gold’s Fekola Mine in Mali needed a robust control that could handle load changes and unmeasured disturbances with minimal operator intervention. With modern Distributed Control Systems (DCS) powerful enough to run advanced control, they often have Model Predictive Control (MPC) blocks built in or available as an “add-on” license, and thus MPC can be readily implemented within the modern concentrator with a relatively low added capital cost. This paper discusses an implementation of two single output MPC controllers to control the SAG Mill at Fekola. This was implemented using the existing signals and advanced control blocks available to the installed DCS.INTRODUCTION Many modern concentrators with VSD driven SAG mills still rely on the control room operator to manually adjust the speed in reaction to increasing bearing pressure. All too often, the problem with this strategy is that by the time the operator reacts with a sudden speed increase, the SAG Mill is likely already on its way to loading up. The next step the operator may take may be to cut back the feed rate, or production until the SAG is once again stable. With this sudden reaction comes an abrupt change in SAG rotational speed and power consumption that sends a surge of material down the circuit as the mill suddenly ejects more pulp. Furthermore, choosing a higher rotational speed can lead to higher than normal liner wear as the cataract overshoots the toe of the charge and impacts the liners. After start-up at B2Gold’s Fekola Gold Mine in 2017, the SAG mill was being controlled manually. The SAG rotational speed was adjusted manually by the operator in step changes depending on whether the SAG bearing pressure was increasing, decreasing or stable. During this time of manual control, the SAG fresh feed rate was also adjusted to a tonnage setpoint with a PID controller. Generally, the SAG fresh feed rate setpoint was kept at a target value, but then the feed rate was throttled back if the SAG mill or grinding circuit showed signs of overloading. The extra challenges were that the operators had limited experience and were concurrently learning how the plant operated. Also, they were also occupied with managing situations in the rest of the plant. Often their attention was drawn away from the SAG mill and during that time, the SAG Mill would load up before they could react."

Jan 1, 2019

By R. R. Culbert

Several thousand parts per billion of uranium are present in some alkaline lake and ground waters of the Okanagan region, British Columbia. To a major extent the uranium content of these highly anomalous waters is controlled by their levels of dissolved bicarbonate. In lakes, dissolved bicarbonate and the organic content of the sediment largely control the partitioning of uranium between sediment and water. This relationship is found to a lesser extent in alkaline creeks, and transported geochemical anomalies in soils appear where uranium-bearing alkaline ground waters have encountered organic materials. There is a possibility that young, near-surface deposits (with very low radioactivity) are forming from these uraniferous waters.

Jan 1, 1978

By T. Senga, T. Namihira, S. Terada, S. Owada

"Electrical disintegration (ED) has been well known as a good comminution method to improve liberation of compositional phases because it was reported that electron avalanche could occur preferentially at phase boundary. But the detailed mechanism of the ED has been still not known. This paper describes the results of ED experiments using synthetic binary sample, copper/resin, under the conditions of various distance between electrodes, and discusses the energy distribution in the three kinds of phenomena in the ED process, which are(1) streamer progression in water, (2) electron avalanche in water, and (3) electron avalanche in solid sample, by measuring current and voltage with elapsed time. Then, it has been found that the energy distribution in the phenomenon (1) is quite low and that the distribution in the phenomenon(2) had a considerably large compared with that in the(3), which indicates that the shockwave generated in water could contribute much to the sample breakage.INTRODUCTIONElectrical disintegration (ED) has been well known as a specific comminution technology which enhanced selective breakage at phase boundary and lead to a good liberation among compositional phases1-6),but the detailed mechanism has not been clarified yet. This study describes energy distribution among the phenomena in the ED process by using a synthetic binary sample, copper/resin, the phenomena of which are (1) streamer progression in water, (2) electron avalanche and shockwave generation in water and (3) electron avalanche in solid sample usually at phase boundary. The energy distribution could be calculated from ED experiments and from voltage-current changes between electrodes as a function of elapsed time.SAMPLE AND EXPERIMENTALSampleThe sample used in this paper was a synthetic binary solid of copper/resin as shown in Figure1.Cut and polished pure copper lump was put into silicone mold and melted epoxy resin was poured into it and cooled, then, finally the binary sample was polished and molded in the form of 10 mm * 10 mm * 10 mm."

Jan 1, 2017

By J. Mizera, J. Zdunek, K. J. Kurzydlowski, A. Dobkowska

This work concerns comparison of corrosion resistance of the aircraft aluminum alloy composed of Al - 2.3%Li - 0.1% Zr. The alloy was hot rolled (HR) from 13 mm to a thickness of 4 mm (e = 2.4) and 1 mm (e = 5.2). Corrosion resistance was investigated by Potentiodynamic Polarization Test. The investigation relied on exposure samples in two different corroding medium: 0.5 M NaCl solution and 0.01 M Na2SO4 solution with added 0.01% of Cl- at room temperature. Furthermore, the microstructure was analyzed using the optical microscope with polarized beam. The hardness was measured on lengthwise profile. It was stated that alloy after the largest deformation (equivalent total strain e = 5.2) is characterized by the best mechanical properties and the best corrosion resistance. The alloys in initial state and after deformation to 4 mm (e = 2.4) are characterized by worse corrosion resistance. It is associated with microstructure and density of dislocation in analyzing material.

Jan 1, 2015

By D. Sagara, V. G. Makhado

"A model based control strategy was implemented at Loulo Gold Mine in Mali, to stabilise the thickener underflow stream density. This stream acts as the feed to the leaching circuit. pH control of the leaching circuit was integrated with the model-based controller due to slow process dynamics that are not suited to PID control. The controller performance was quantified over a period of 6 months, and was compared to the performance before implementation. The model based controller reduced process variability for both thickener underflow density and pH considerably, and resulted in a reduction in flocculant and lime consumption of 9.32 and 6.55%, respectively. INTRODUCTION Reagent consumption in gold processing plants significantly contributes to the total operational costs. In a typical Carbon-in-pulp (CIP) circuit, the reagent consumption associated with leaching, adsorption, elution and regeneration contribute to approximately 15% of the total operational costs (Stange, 1999). At Loulo Gold Mine, the reagent consumption associated with leaching, adsorption, elution and regeneration contributes to 6% of the total operational costs. As such, a reduction in reagent consumption will present a significant opportunity for savings on operating expenditure. Variability in feed ore characteristics results in continuous changes in steady state operating regions, which presents process control challenges as a result of the long residence times in some of the process units associated with gold processing plants. Overdosing often occurs in the presence of process variability to ensure safe operation and to maintain recovery targets. As a means of reducing reagent consumption and accounting for significant changes in the feed to gold plants, some of the plants have resorted to improving their process control strategies around their circuits. This paper focuses on the implementation of a model predictive based controller at Loulo Gold Mine on their thickener and Carbon-in-leach (CIL) tank to: •,stabilise the thickener underflow density, and •,the CIL tank pH."

Jan 1, 2017