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By Allen D. Look

In the prevention of accidents in milling operations, the proper installation and guarding of electrical and mechanical equipment, safe clearances, good housekeeping, adequate fire protection, adequate ventilation, dust and fume control, and good illumination, as well as safe practices, are essential. In the new concentrator of the Magna Copper Co., Superior, Ariz., many safeguards were incorporated and safe practices instituted to minimize accident hazards. The purpose of this paper is to describe some of these features and practices.

Jan 1, 1951

By Phillip N. Yasnowsky

This Bureau of Mines publication tabulates State taxes levied on nonfuel minerals that have the characteristics of a severance tax.

Jan 1, 1978

By T. Backers

In fracture mechanics modeling the rock mass is seen as the combination of rock material and fractures, which are evident on different scales. The activation and propagation of fractures dominates the stability and performance issues as well as fluid flow potential. Once fractures have started to grow into each other and create through going separations, stability of rock engineering constructions may be violated. Further, as fracture mechanics inherently incorporated a scaling law in the form of the participating fracture length, scaling issues can be more accurately mirrored. This contribution highlights some examples of application of a fracture mechanics based code on some rock mechanics issues such as numerical laboratory experiments, borehole stability or the creation of fluid pathways due to underground constructions. The results show explicitly the creation of fractures and connection of existing ones, and hence the safety and performance issues. It has to be concluded that the basis for frequent application of fracture mechanics on specialized challenges in Geomechanics is laid, and the needs for future developments are defined.

May 1, 2009

This publication summarizes, for potential contractors and other interested parties, the research, development, and demonstration contract projects programed by the Bureau of Mines for fiscal year 1982 (October 1, 1980 -September 30, 1981) under its Minerals Health and Safety Technology program. Contingencies may require that a significant port ion of the program be deferred into fiscal year 1983. The objective of these projects is to provide an ordered and sequenced series of advances toward the Bureau's overall goal of providing the systems technology required to create a healthier and safer working environment for the Nation's mining and minerals processing workers.

Jan 1, 1981

The paper outlines the history and current status of the VALMIN Code and sets out the background, methodology, results and recommendations of the Independent Review of the VALMIN Code undertaken during 2001 under the Chairmanship of Ian Goddard. The paper is based on the final report of the Taskforce, which was submitted to the Board of The AusIMM for consideration.

Jan 1, 2002

A LARGE attendance at the annual dinner of the Institute, to be held this year on Tuesday eve-ning of convention week, is already assured. Presentation of the Douglas, Hunt and Saunders medals will attract unusual attention since not only in Blaylock, Mathews and Hoover the Institute will be honoring men who have made notable contributions to the advance-ment of their profession, but as to one of them each person as he passes down the reception line will be won-dering whether in renewing acquaintance with our past-president and present Secretary of Commerce, he is not greeting the next president of the United States. Elsewhere in this issue accounts of the professional careers of these three men appear as also of the two younger men, Charles H. Herty, Jr., and P. H. Royster, who are to receive the Robert W. Hunt and the J. E. Johnson awards. Institute honors go for technical achievement, but the Institute will be proud and happy if the nation should later confirm its own judgment by placing larger responsibilities on one of its members. The medals are to be presented at the annual dinner following the President's reception and preceding the dance. There will be no. other speeches and since the occasion falls on Carnival Night a particularly gay evening is anticipated. The event will be at the Wal-dorf as usual, and members are urged to return prompt-ly the reservation cards sent them by mail. Other entertainment features will include a Smoker, Monday evening at 8.15, held at Mecca Temple and in charge of a new committee with Fred Kay of the Petro-leum Division as chairman. He promises that vocal music will not be allowed to interrupt conversation. Lunch will be served each day on the Fifth Floor of the Engineering Societies Building, and ten special luncheons and dinners have been arranged for particu-lar committees and groups as shown by the detailed program. The Woman's Auxiliary has laid out a gen-erous program including luncheons, teas, a theater party on the night the men folks go to the Smoker, visits to museums and, not the least important, a round of the leading shops. The Excursion Committee is arranging for an excur-sion sure to be of interest. The American Smelting and Refining Co. has opened its great Perth Amboy plant to the Institute, and on Thursday, Feb. 23, a party will be taken to it by bus traveling through the Holland Tunnel en route. Full opportunity will be afforded those interested to see the workings of the ventilation system of that great public work. If a sufficient number indicate interest, arrangements will be made for group excursions to other plants in the vicinity of the city.

Jan 2, 1928

By Robert F. Randolph

Introduction This paper is a descriptive analysis of injuries and fatalities at small surface bituminous coalmining companies in Pennsylvania. The purpose of analyzing a specific industry sector and location is to identify issues that might be missed in a wider analysis. Other studies of small mine safety (e.g., Peters and Fotta, 1994, Randolph and Boldt, 1997) have shown that the relationship between safety and mine size is not a simple one. Some injury types occur at higher rates at small mines, while others occur at lower rates. Consequently, an analysis limited to a specific type of mining can help identify hazards and issues specific to that sector. The results of this analysis will be useful for directing training, intervention, and research efforts towards the most prevalent causal factors and incident types. Procedures and Definitions Data sources The primary sources of data for this analysis were files provided by MSHA containing information collected under Title 30 Code of Federal Regulations, Part 50. These files, commonly referred to as “Part 50 data”, are provided though MSHA’s Program Evaluation and Information Resources directorate. Two primary types of injuries were selected from the Part 50data: Fatalities (MSHA “degree of injury” code 1) and lost-time injuries, otherwise known as nonfatal with days lost (MSHA “degree of injury” codes 2 through 5). Lost-time injuries involve either actual days away from work or days of restricted activity or both. Fatality and lost-time injury incidence rates were calculated using the standard MSHA formula: Number of injuries per 200,000 employee-hours. Additional information on company sizes and mine ownership was provided by the Pennsylvania State University College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. Time span A five-year time span was selected for this study. More than a single year of safety experience is usually needed to capture a broad range of incident types. Many types of injuries, especially fatal injuries, can be extremely rare, and may be missed if too short a time span is selected. However, a time span that extends too far back may begin to suffer historical threats to validity. That is, incidents that occurred several years ago may be caused by hazards that have since been remedied or may be related to mining practices and conditions that no longer exist. A five-year span offers a practical compromise between these two concerns. Consequently, the MSHA Part 50 data files from 1993 through 1997 were used. The 1997 file was in “preliminary” form at the time of the study, so small variations from the final 1997 “close out” file can be expected. Based on past experience, we do not expect the close-out variations to have a significant impact on the findings.

By Daniel Roy, Danielle Bouffard, Antoine Berton, Simon Gariépy

Commissioning a mineral processing plant has always been a challenging task. The process includes pre- operational verification, dry and wet commissioning, and a gradual ramp-up to full production, all of which must be executed within the shortest possible timeframe, requiring numerous highly interdependent tasks to be conducted concurrently. This phase is under scrutiny by shareholders, corporate management, and other stakeholders who are keen to see a return on investment as the operation starts yielding results. Despite extensive documentation in the literature highlighting its significance, the impact of the commissioning phase remains underestimated in contemporary mining projects. This paper provides an overview of the commissioning process and its associated challenges before focusing on a critical success factor: building a dedicated commissioning team with the required competencies and personality profiles. The roadmap to achieving an efficient plant start-up is outlined. Drawing on over 15 years of experience with more than 20 concentrator commissioning and start-ups, a general framework is presented to maximize success. This method emphasizes the crucial role of the operation and metallurgy team in supporting these projects. Finally, insights from Soutex’s involvement in multiple start-ups are shared, offering lessons learned that emphasize best practices and challenges encountered in expediting the ramp-up process while maintaining high Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) standards.

Feb 1, 2025

By Jin Qiu

Experiments were performed to determine the extent of minor element elimination that occurred when mixtures of copper smelter dust and copper concentrate, were calcined under vacuum. Almost complete removal of the As, Sb, Bi and Pb occurred due to the conversion of the minor element compounds of these elements into their highly volatile sulphides by reaction with sulphur from the concentrate. Heat and mass balance calculations of the slag-blow in a copper converter found that ~30 tonnes of the vacuum calcine could be used to produce 100 tonnes of copper as white metal. The use of dirty concentrate as the sulphidizing agent in the vacuum calcination means that the minor element treatment capacity of the smelter complex could be increased by 60 %. Also the productivity of the converters may be increased by up to 8 % due to the supply of copper values and oxygen in the calcined mixture.

Jan 1, 2005

By Dale Preece, Stephen Chung

Blasting induced rock fragmentation is an art that has been developed and refined for hundred’s of years through blasting and recording the results. Good blasting fragmentation practices were thus developed through experience. However, this method requires a history that is typically developed in a mine over a number of years and sometimes at considerable expense. Quantification of fragmentation as a function of rock-mass characteristics and blast design is attractive. Developments towards this end have included semi-empirical methods as well as computer codes that explicitly treat shock wave transmission and the subsequent rock breakage. This paper will present predictions of fragmentation resulting from rock blasting using the computer code AUTODYN and a new state-of-the-art material model for brittle rock and concrete.

Jan 1, 2003

?Classification System Efficiency (CSE)? is a simple, powerful concept which can be used to measure and improve ball mill circuit efficiency. This paper describes six plant case studies which demonstrate the use of CSE to diagnose and/or improve grinding circuit performance, with related improvements in circuit efficiency ranging from 3 to 30 percent. The increased effective mill grinding energy is recaptured from energy that was going into over grinding, which can greatly benefit downstream mineral separation. The achievable CSE for given circuit design/operating variables is described, providing every plant metallurgist with the means to determine the potential for increasing their particular grinding circuit?s efficiency through increased CSE.

Jan 1, 2012

By S. J. Hemberger, F. W. Lee

"This project constitutes the results of a geophysical field investigation undertaken in the mining areas in the vicinity of Marion, Crittenden County, Kentucky.Results were obtained at well-known mines being worked for fluorspar. Of special interest was the determination of mineral trends at such mines, particularly in relation to the fault patterns, because of ore in them.This work also constitutes a comparison between the field information that can be obtained by purely geological means and the additional information obtained by applying geophysical surveys to the same areas.As the mineralization in this area is controlled almost surely by the faults therein, the great importance of locating faults cannot be over emphasized. Accordingly, there has been incorporated herein the analyses as well as the application of electrical resistivity methods for fault determinations.In the western part of Kentucky, particularly in that area designated as the Cave-In-Rock quadrangle by the United States Geological Survey, is located the center of the fluorspar mining district of Kentucky. From the mining as well as commercial viewpoint, this area is of considerable interest and importance. It has been described by Currier4/ as a large structural dome that collapsed, through faulting, into a mosaic composed of a main fault pattern that has a strike to the northeast in sedimentary formations. Accompanying this main fault pattern are a large number of irregular faults. This fault complex is also traversed by a dike pattern that has a regional strike for this region focusing a northwesterly direction. The faulting occurred before the dike intrusions, the latter being composed largely of peridotite rocks. According to Reed,5/ most of the metallic mineralization, composed chiefly of galena and sphalerite, occurs at or near the Intersection of the dikes with the faults, indicating a possible igneous origin of the ore deposits. Reed adds that the fluorspar generally does not follow this rule but may also be found in other portions of the faulted zone not directly related to dike intrusions. The area may be considered of equal interest in the occurrence of lead and zinc and in the occurrence of fluorspar controlled by the faults. Hatmaker and Davis6/ give detailed information concerning the form of the ore bodies and economic factors that control ore production in this area; they also suggest the application of geophysical methods in this territory. Ulrich and Smith7/ also discuss geological details in this area. This area is therefore of interest, whether examined from a large structural point of view or from a very detailed angle. The former will assist in determining the origin of the mineralization and its economic possibilities, whereas the latter will give details concerning fault locations and their geologically and geophysically controlling features. This work was undertaken as a pilot investigation relating to the study of the location of fault occurrences, in which it was attempted to determine the location of faults as well as the fault patterns in certain isolated areas. No effort was made to identify the mineralization from the gouge material in the faulted zones; this problem was left for subsequent investigations."

Jun 1, 1946

By Carolyn Kenney, Jianjun Liu, Zhenghe Xu

"The flotation of fine particles has been a challenge to scientists and engineers in mineral processing. A novel concept of reactive oily-bubbles as carrier to float fine particles is described in this paper. The reactive oily bubble flotation is considered attractive for fine particle flotation. In addition to the role of fine particle agglomeration by oily films, the surface properties of air bubbles coated with a thin oil film can be better controlled for the desired selectivity by adding certain types and concentrations of water insoluble collectors into the oil phase. This approach can eliminate the addition of collector to the aqueous phase, avoid undesired synergetic interactions among collectors, activators, depressants and dispersants present in slurry, minimize undesired activation of gangue particles and significantly reduce the amount of collectors needed.The concept of using reactive oily-bubble to achieve selective flotation was demonstrated in contact angle measurement and by microflotation tests with fine sulphide minerals: sphalerite and galena in this paper. The flotation behavior of sulfide minerals can be radically modified with adjustment of solution pH, addition of depressant and activator as in conventional flotation. The successful separation between PbS/SiO2, ZnS/SiO2 and PbS/ZnS was demonstrated using mixed mineral systems. Compared with conventional flotation, the reactive oily-bubble flotation showed a stronger collecting power.INTRODUCTIONThe challenge for fine particle flotation has long been recognized and well documented (Fuerstenau, 1980). Because of drastic changes in surface properties of fine particles and associated physicochemical and hydrodynamic conditions of flotation systems, fine particles responded poorly to the conventional flotation processes. For instance, the small mass and hence low inertia of fine particles would result in a low efficiency of collision and attachment of fine particles with flotation bubbles. Large specific surface area of fine particles, on the other hand, would cause an increased reagent consumption. Dominating colloidal forces of fines may cause slime-coating, accompanying a low selectivity (Somasundaran & Arbiter, 1979; Fuerstenau, 1980; Sivamohan, 1990)."

Jan 1, 2003

By E. L. Bruce

Red lake is a body of water some thirty miles in length lying about forty miles northwest of the outlet of Lac Seul. It forms one of several large lake expansions on a river which enters the English river from the north, twenty miles below Lac Seul. Before the construction of the National Transcontinental railway a long canoe journey was necessary to reach that part of the English river, and Red lake, two days travel beyond, was one of the furthest outposts of the trading companies in that difficultly accessible triangle of country between Lake Winnipeg, James Bay and the English and Albany rivers. The Hudson's Bay Company post at Red lake is said to be one of the earliest established in the district but there are no records at the post, and as the English and Albany rivers never were used to any great extent as travel routes there is no mention of the place in the diaries of any of the early explorers. Dr. Bell passed through Red lake on his excursion to the Berens river country in 1883, and a brief note mentions that Huronian rocks were seen. To Dr. Dowling, however, belongs the credit for the first thorough description of this basin of sediments and basic volcanics. In 1893 he followed the course of Dr. Bell's trip, of ten years previous, through Red lake to the upper part of the Berens river.

Jan 1, 1926

By T. O. Dauda, L. O. Ojo

One of the results of the Earth summit (The United Nations Conference) on Environment and Development - UNDP is the statement of forest principles. Others include: the Rio Declaration which is that the human beings are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature; Agenda 21-for achieving sustainable development in the 21st century; the convention on biological diversity and the frame work convention on climate change. In the preservation of the biological diversity, Government at various levels took series of steps such as legislation, establishment of forest reserves including strict nature reserves, Forest guards, afforestation projects and others. Omo Forest Reserves is one of the Forest reserves owned by the Ogun state Government of Nigeria. It houses the Omo Biosphere Reserve (that is Strict Nature Reserve of International standard). This biosphere reserve is surrounded by buffer zones, which are meant to serves as protection for the biosphere reserves against encroachments. This study showed that the richest plot in term of species composition (that is plot 15 with the species frequency of 123) is almost the least diverse (with Simpson diversity index of 0.9127 which is 0.0238 higher than the least). It could also be established from this study that the diameter size class of trees with the highest frequencies are the lower size classes (5cm-10cm and 10cm -20cm). These results revealed a magnanimous encroachment on the buffer zones, which is an indication of bad status for the Biosphere Reserves as well as against the spirit of the sustainable use of the natural resources.

Jan 1, 2005

By J. Diaz

"Antioquia region, in Colombia, is considered one of the areas with the highest mercury contamination in the world due to its use in gold recovery through artisanal mining, emissions to the environment between 100 and 150 tonnes of mercury are estimated by year. Therefore it became necessary to develop a project in which it was proposed aim to empower traditional artisanal mining community, or in different areas, such as gold mining in the region of Antioquia, in the implementation of safe mining practices and environmentally sustainable, from the introduction of clean technologies, in order to prevent or mitigate the impacts generated by traditional mining on the environment and the communities involved. In order to achieve this training to traditional mining community developed and technical visits to artisanal mining were performed in order to optimize operating processes and promote safe mining practices. In the project more than 1400 artisanal miners were trained.INTRODUCTION In the developing world, a combined 30 million individuals extract more than 30 different minerals using rudimentary techniques. Gold is the preferred mineral extracted by artisanal operators due to its high unit value and its market price, which has increased almost sevenfold over the last decade (Veiga et al, 2014). The artisanal gold mining sector in Colombia has 200,000 miners officially producing 30 tonnes Au/a. In the Northeast of the Department of Antioquia, there are 17 mining towns and between 15,000 and 30,000 artisanal gold miners (M. Veiga, 2010) (Upme, 2014). This production, however, has caused environmental problems, including high levels of river siltation and mercury pollution (Veiga et al, 2014) (UPME, 2007) (Cordy et al., 2013). The mercury contamination in Colombia by artisanal gold mining has been recognized by a number of researchers and local authorities for over a decade estimated that the annual mercury emissions from artisanal gold miners in Colombia in 2007 were between 50 and 100 tonnes, however given recent gold value increases and gold rush activity, current mercury emissions are likely much higher. Colombia is likely the world's 3rd largest source of mercury emissions from AGM after China (240 to 650 tonnes of Hg/a) and Indonesia (130 to 160 tonnes of Hg/a) (Telmer and Veiga, 2008) and is the world's highest per capita mercury polluter (M. Veiga, 2010)."

Jan 1, 2016

By N. C. Saxena, S. K. Puri, A. K. Pal

The condition-based monitoring system is an important innovation for reducing the downtime of costly, heavy earth- moving machinery (HEMM). Vibration severity measurements were made on the HEMM located at the Gevra Project, the largest coal opencast project in India. Whenever the vibration severity levels exceeded the permissible limits, necessary actions were taken to replace the defective parts of the ma- chine. The systematic vibration monitoring of 120-t (132-st) dumpers, followed by corrective measures led to a substantial increase in component life (8.18% for an 445E Dressor and 28.44% for an MK-30 Unit Rig). The associated costs (including spareparts) were reduced by 21.55% and 25.74%, respectively. Because of the reduced downtime, savings for these two dumpers over the period from March 26 to June 25,1998, were of the order of Rs.26.47 (US$0.649) million.

Jan 1, 2000

The first metal-mine accident-prevention course was prepared and published in 1942-45 as a series of seven miners' circulars (Nos. 51-57). The scope of the course has been broadened, revised, and brought up to date and is being published as a similar series of seven miners' circulars (Nos. 51-57, revised) on accident prevention in metal and nonmetallic mines. These circulars are: Accident Statistics (Miners' Circular 51), dealing with general statistics on accidents and injuries at metal and nonmetallic mines, including causes, costs, and the use of investigations and reports of all accidents.

Jan 1, 1957

By R. S. Simkus, J. R. Egan

"Changes have recently been applied to the Sullivan Concentrator lead and zinc circuits to treat fine-grained ores which make-up the majority of ore reserves in the mine. Pilot plant test work conducted in 1990-91 indicated that concentrate grades would be substantially improved by reducing the particle size (P,0) of the lead from 38 to 15 µm and the zinc from 45 to 24 µm.Circuit revisions involved installation of major new equipment including: two GUO kilowatt Vertimills for regrinding, a 4 metre diameter column flotation cell and a 4 metre diameter hyperbaric pressure filter for dewatering. Duties of the existing regrind mills were reassigned.IntroductionThe Sullivan ore body is a massive sulphide deposit consisting of fine grained mixtures of sulphides, sometimes inter-banded with country rock and varying widely in their content of lead, zinc, iron and silicates. Principal economic minerals are marmatite and galena. Iron is mainly present as pyrrhotite (85%), and to a lesser extent as pyrite (15%) .The orebody has been actively mined since 1923, with 1992 ore reserves estimated at 15,800,000 tonnes with an average grade of 4. 7% lead and 7. 9% zinc. Current plans call for treatment of 1,600,000 tonnes/year, (7,000 tonnes per operating day), with flotation feed grades of 5.9% lead, 10.1% zinc, and 22.0% iron."

Jan 1, 1994

By B. S. Ignasiak, Dennis Carson

"Laboratory study of the behaviour• of binary coal blends shows that coke strength is more closely dependent on the distribution of ""reactive"" oxygen in the parent coals than on their proximate, elemental or petrographic compositions, and it also appears possible to qualitatively predict coke strength from information about reactive oxygen. Proceeding from this recognition, experiments were carried out to test the possibility of preparing metallurgical cokes from binary blends in which non-caking hvb coal was substantially freed of reactive oxygen by prior heat t1•eatment under controlled conditions. The results indicate that such blends can yield surprisingly strong cokes and that coke strength may be amenable to further improvements by modifying the size distribution of the pre-heated component and the rate at which it is charred."

Jan 1, 1976