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By B. F. Osborne

"A new sensor cannot be considered in isolation from the process in which it is utilized. This paper, describing an on-stream particle size analyzer, therefore gives considerable emphasis to the slurry handling techniques employed to ensure that the instrument is presented with a representative sample. A new sampler is described, which continuously abstracts a small, representative sample from a closed pipeline containing a flowing slurry. This sample is then diluted, thoroughly mixed and pumped to a head tank, from where a continuous stream is fed at a constant rate to the size analyzer. Data are presented to show that particle size segregation is minimal throughout this sampling and sample preparation. A continuous particle size analyzer based on a separation principle is described, and the basic parameters of size distributions, and how they relate to this particular instrument, are considered. Typical results are given. An electronic system is presented which accepts the basic sensor outputs, and converts these to a particle size signal suitable for process control. Finally, the use of an inplant computer to process the sensor signals to obtain a particle size signal is briefly considered."

Jan 1, 1972

By Richard C. Banting

Excessive vibration is known to have an adverse affect on soft body tissue and operators of heavy mining equipment can be exposed to vibration that exceeds levels recommended in international guidelines (ISO 2631-1, for example). Research has found that many of the seat and suspension systems currently used in mine haul trucks and load haul dump vehicles are actually amplifying the vibration. This overview presentation will outline the current research being conducted at Laurentian University and the University of Western Ontario, and the roles of partners in rating the ability of a number of commonly used mine vehicle seats to isolate harmful vibration.

Oct 1, 2010

By C. E. White

History The Con-Rycon mine is situated in the Yellowknife mining district, North West Territories, 608 air miles north of Edmonton, Alberta. The earliest reported discovery of gold in the area was made in 1898 but no extensive exploration occurred until 1928. The birth of Yellowknife as a mining community took place in 1934 with the staking of the Rich group and subsequent shipping of 16 tons of high grade ore. The Giant group was also among the claims staked in 1934, and later staking showed a tendency to close the gap between these two properties. In the fall of 1935, the A.Y.E. claims, situated south of the Giant group, were staked to cover a discovery of the Geological Survey of Canada and, after general release of the Survey's information, the adjoining ground was staked. These claims included the Con, Negus, Meg, and Kam groups. In 1936 four lapsed claims were re-staked as the P and G group and later acquired by Rycon Mines, Limited, controlled by the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada, Limited. The Con and various adjacent groups owned by Cominco are now operated with the Rycon under one management. Surface trenching on the Con property started in 1936 and, during the fall and winter of 1936-37, a 60- foot 5 ft. by 9 ft. inclined prospect shaft was sunk. The encouragement provided by the shaft and diamond drilling in 1937 led to the decision to establish a mining plant, and in August, 1938, the 100-ton cyanide mill produced its first brick- the first gold brick poured in the history of the North West Territories. In November, 1938, the mill was enlarged to a 175-ton capacity and operated at this rate until 1941, when refractory ore was encountered. This situation was met by the installation of flotation and roasting units and, at the same time, the milling capacity was increased to 300 tons daily. Labour shortages and Government restrictions forced a reduction of output and in 1943 milling was suspended while mine development continued on a reduced scale throughout the war years. The present full-scale of operations was resumed in 1946 and the total production to the end of 1948 amounted to 288,853 oz. gold and 72,347 oz. silver.

Jan 1, 1949

By C. R. Julian

THE large pyrites ore-bodies, the underground mining of which is to be described, are situated at Rio Tinto in the Province of Huelva in Southern Spain. The situation of the different ore-bodies with relation to one another is shown in Figure 1. It will be seen on the plan that the strike of the ore-bodies is approximately east and west. The geology of the district has been very fully described by Dr. D. Williams (1), so that for the purposes of this paper it will be sufficient to give briefly the salient features o each of the two larger ore-bodies which are being mined by underground methods at the present time. (a) San Dionisio.-This ore-body is the largest single deposit in Rio Tinto, having on its upper levels a length of 3,500 ft. On the upper levels the average width is approximately 200ft. but in places on the lower levels there is a width of 900ft. of un broken pyrites. Diamond-drill holes, without running out of ore, show the ore-body to persist to a depth of at least 1,600 ft. The ore-body in the upper part lies between slate and porphyry walls, but in depth is enclosed in porphyry walls. (b) South Lode.-Faulting is considered to be responsible for the break in the solid ore between South Lode and San Dionisio. On the upper levels, the South Lode ore-body has an unbroken length of 4,000 ft. The massive pyrites has a maximum width of 300ft. and an average of about 100 ft. Ore has been proved to a depth of 1,000 ft., at which depth the ore-body is much reduced both in length and breadth. This ore-body, to the depth at which it has been proved, lies entirely between slate and porphyry walls. The South Lode and the San Dionisio ore-bodies are mined both by open-cast and by underground methods. There is evidence that these mines have been exploited intermittently during the last 3,000 years; but, as is to be expected, no records are available of the tonnage mined prior to the time of purchase by the present company.

Jan 1, 1940

By A. E. Soregaroli, H. D. Meade

"The Keystone porphyry molybdenum deposit, located in southcentral British Columbia, is hosted by intrusive rocks of the Cretaceous Mount Lytton batholith and the early Tertiary Keystone quartz diorite stock. The molybdenite mineralization is associated with rhyolite porphyry dikes flanking a large 1300 m by 2100 m breccia complex. Recognition of the potential for the buried molybdenum porphyry system was based on quartz-molybdenite vein fragments within the hydrothermal breccias.The full extent of the molybdenum mineralization is not known. The few deep drill holes along one comer of the breccia complex defines strong metal zoning of molybdenum and associated elements of F, Mn, Zn, Pb, Au, Ag, Fe and W about the molybdenum stockwork mineralization that may be useful for guiding additional exploration. The best mineralization occurred near the base of the deepest drill hole with 0.114% Mo in rhyolite porphyry near the edge of the breccia pipe at a depth of 1350 m.The exploration history of the deposit has been complex, focussing on both porphyry-style mineralization and precious metal veins and stockworks on the periphery of the porphyry system. Exploration to date has defined an attractive porphyry molybdenum system with uneconomic grades at great depth; however, there remains significant potential to define economic mineralization elsewhere in the Keystone porphyry system and adjoining occu""ences."

Jan 1, 1995

By G. R. Elliott

Foreword The office of the Supervisory Mining Engineer, a branch of the l. Federal Government, is financially interested in no oil company and has no stock to sell. This office, however, is deeply interested in the proper and efficient development of Canada's natural resources. The people of Canada are interested in the petroleum development in Turner Valley for two principal reasons: As represented by the Department of the Interior, they are the largest owners of petroleum and natural-gas rights in the field; As a nation, they are vitally interested in the development of petroleum and natural gas as a national asset, and therefore, also, in all productive property, no matter who directly controls the leases. As has been stated by Mr. Charles C. Ross, Supervisory Mining Engineer, "The Department, being responsible for the administration of these public resources, necessarily requires regulations to protect them from abuse by lessees. Our portion of this responsibility is to record a complete history of all drilling operations and to see that proper drilling methods are adopted to prevent damage and wanton waste of the valuable natural resources under discussion." Not only does our position necessitate an impartial and a judicial viewpoint, but, being day by day in touch with all operations in the western provinces, we are uniquely situated to comprehend both individual and general problems.

Jan 1, 1930

By B. St. Pierre

"The alchemists' symbol for antimony is a diamond with a dot in the centre. The latin name ''stibium'' gives this mineral its chemical symbol ""Sb"" and the name to the principal ore containing antimony. This is Stibnite, a sulphide of antimony, and the valuable mineral at the Consolidated Durham operations. Stibnite chemically pure contains 71.69% antimony metal.Antimony is used in many forms, as an alloy in the production of metal products and as chemical compounds of oxides and sulphides. In Biblical times, antimony was used as a medicine and as eyebrow makeup.Today, the largest single use of the metal is as a hardener and strengthener of lead, and corrosion inhibitor in storage batteries. New applications for antimony in its oxide form as fire retardants are broadening the overall demand especially in the chemical, plastic and fabric industries. Other users include the Military for such things as tracer bullets, shrapnel, smoke screens and flame throwers. An unusual property of the metal is that it contracts when heated which has made it a valuable alloying metal in the printing industry, for heat shields on re-entry vehicles used in the space programmes, and also for the manufacture of bearings."

Jan 1, 1977

By K. L. Murphy, G. Multamaki, P. M. Huck

"A preliminary evaluation, based on existing data, has been made of the implications of placing radium-barium sludge in tailings areas. The study was restricted to a consideration of possible increases in the quantities of radionuclides escaping to the environment through either groundwater or surf ace water, considering the types of tailings treated and the effluent treatment systems currently operating in Canada.IntroductionIn the recovery of uranium from ore deposits, the tailings produced by mine/mill complexes are conveyed to impoundment areas in slurry form. After settling, the supernatant is discharged to the environment together with runoff from precipitation on the tailings bas in. Currently, all operating uranium mines in Canada employ barium chloride treatment to control the release of dissolved radium to the aquatic environment. The dissolved radium in the tailings decant is precipitated with barium chloride, forming (Ra,Ba)SO4, and allowed to settle in ponds or lakes. In some instances, settling tanks have replaced ponds and flocculants have been added to aid settling. Because the Atomic Energy Control Board does not consider the precipitation ponds to be suitable for final disposal of these sludges, acceptable sites must be found. Options which have been suggested for sludge management include underground placement either in worked-out mine areas or in special chambers, or placement in the tailings areas. Conceptually, the latter alternative is attractive and probably would minimize sludge handling. This alternative would be subject to the AECB policy which requires that upon abandonment, radioactive releases from a tailings area must be within present regulatory limits and that treatment to meet these limits should not be required in perpetuity.No quantitative data exist concerning either the effect of physical and chemical conditions in the tailings on resolubilization of radium from precipitated sludges or the fraction of this additional radium which would be released."

Jan 1, 1982

By Shichang Liu, Hongli Jia, Zhaolian Wang, Maotang Liu, Ltd. Shandong Huate Magnet Technology Co., Fengliang Liu

"Introduce and promote a latest technology and equipment for magnetite. It’s featured of purifying concentrate, lowering tailing grade, high concentrate recovery rate and stable operation. HUATE® New Style Elutriation Electromagnetic Separator is an equipment to obviously upgrade magnetite. The slurry is fed into separation area through feeder. Generated by excitation coil, the working magnetic field distributes specially in separation area. Under the combined effect of the background field, excitation and demagnetic field and gravity, the mineral particles float downwards in the form of magnetic chains, and interact with the rising water. The gangue, non-magnetic particles, lean intergrowth,etc will be discarded as tailing via overflow tank and pipe. While the magnetic will be discharged from concentrate pipe. Its grade is 2%-10% higher than that of traditional magnetic separation equipment. It adopts the technologies of transformer oil cooling, alternative and uniform pulsation magnetic field controlling the tailing grade, larger drum feed-in device, more uniform umbrella scattering discharge and stabler output current, and realizes lower coil temperature raise, stabler magnetic field, more uniform discharge, effective isolation of weak-magnetic area from non-magnetic area, more obvious upgradation and recovery rate and lowering tailing mFe%. It’s more suitable to purify and thicken the high grade and ultrafine iron powder. Compared with traditional elutriation equipment, it adopts new technologies in removing impurities, operation, large-scale, process simplification, water-saving, remote control, etc. It optimizes the comprehensive beneficiation index, expands its application scope, reduces resource wastes and increases economic benefits.INTRODUCTIONMagnetite accounts for a comparatively great proportion in various iron resources. As it’s a kind of strong magnetic mineral, we must adopt the weak magnetic separation equipment in magnetic separation process to realize removing Si and lowering impurities. While it cannot do very well to use the common weak magnetic separation equipment in the final cleaning to remove Si and lower impurities. At present, the plants, adopting single magnetic separation process to realize cleaning and removing Si and lowering impurities, are in the minority. Most magnetite plants adopt the flotation separation process to remove Si, lower impurities and purify the concentrate. Though with stable indexes and high Fe recovery rate, the flotation process is very complicated, high-cost and with lots of environmental pollution. If adopting the weak magnetic separation equipment can realize removing Si, lowering impurities and the final cleaning, the magnetic separation process should be the primary choice."

Jan 1, 2016

By J. L. Huisman, G. Schouten

After pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy, bio(hydro)metallurgy is the latest development in the ongoing search for efficient and economic metal winning processes. In addition to bioleaching, other biotechnology-based applications are getting more and more accepted. In this paper a number of proven and commercial processes will be presented that can be applied for nickel and cobalt recovery and refining. These processes are based on the ability of biomass to convert the redox state of sulphur compounds under ambient conditions. They can be applied to recover sulphate from effluents or SOx from off gases and convert it to H2S or dissolved sulphide that can be reused in production or effluent treatment. Not only does this minimize the costs on resources but it also reduces waste production and improves the quality of discharges even to the point where reuse becomes feasible.

Jan 1, 2005

By C K. Bell, L. S. Collett

An AFMAG survey was flown in 1968 over the Upper Nelson River area, Manitoba. The flight direction was northwest-southeast and flight spacing was 2 miles. In the Cross Lake Subprovince, AFMAG showed that an isolated peridotite outcrop was part of a dike that extended over 80 miles. Diabase dikes are not always marked by an anomaly, but isolated cross-overs, when used in conjunction with geological and magnetic data, permit their extrapolation. Anomalies coincide with areas of sulphide mineralization. In the Flin Fion Subprovince, known and unknown northeast-trending faults are detected. The Berry Creek fault was extended south through Tramping lake, then under the Paleozoic cover. Conductors were detected at, or near, the axes of major synclines within Amisk and Snow Group sediments. Granitic terranes have low conductivity and, because they are characterized by smooth AFMAG profiles, they can be delimited. AF.MAG is being recognized as a geophysical method that can aid geological mapping and interpretation. Its most important contribution to the geologist will be in regions where out-crops are sparse.

Jan 1, 1971

By M. Churchill, V. R. Degner

"Over the past two decades, declining ore body grades, increased operating costs and increased construction costs have provided an incentive for the development of progressively larger flotation machines. As a consequence, the 60 to 100 cubic foot flotation machine of the l950's and l960's is being rapidly replaced by large volume machines, with a resulting improvement in the flotation machine specific capacity (TPH processed per square foot floor space), specific power (HP per TPH processed) and process control simplicity. The recent development, and satisfactory plant evaluation, of the WEMCO 1000 cubic foot flotation machine provides the means by which further economic and operating advantages may be incorporated in high tonnage mill applications.The systematic development of the large 1000 cubic foot flotation machine, and its subsequent performance evaluation in beneficiating metalliferous ores (copper, zinc and iron) will be reviewed in this paper and recently completed plant results will also be provided."

Jan 1, 1982

By Hamid Butt

Information Technology ??Advanced Information Technology is dramatically changing information flow within organizations. This enables employees to have information at their fingertips to make informed and prompt decisions. ??Real-time information allows timely analysis, which dramatically reduces cycle times, making organizations faster and more flexible. Business Challenges ??Continual growth of mining and Mine mobile fleet.??Increasing maintenance costs. ??Difficult to identify and troubleshoot equipment problems while equipment is operating. ??New equipment is increasing in complexity and cost. Therefore, each failure results in a greater impact to production and cost. ??Troubleshooting practice is reactive. ??Protect and optimize the use of mining assets to realize maximum business value. ??Maintenance and Operating information is not easily accessible ?no near real-time system that provides complete information.

May 1, 2006

By J. B. Boisvert, D. S. Silva

"Drillhole placement involves benefits, costs, and constraints. Benefits are related to the drilling campaign value, which includes maximizing “indicated” and “measured” resources. Costs include drilling, rig movement, and access construction. Constraints include infeasible areas, maximum and minimum angles of drilling, maximum depth of drilling, and budget. Manually planning drillholes that meet these constraints is suboptimal. A framework for straight drillhole optimization that accounts for benefits, costs, and constraints is presented. The method aims to maximize the value of resources converted from “inferred” to indicated and measured. The framework is demonstrated for a Nevada gold deposit and outperforms manually selected drillholes.RÉSUMÉ Le choix de l’emplacement d’un trou de forage s’accompagne d’avantages, de coûts et de contraintes. Les avantages sont liés à la valeur d’une campagne de forage, qui comprend l’optimisation des ressources « indiquées » et « mesurées ». Les coûts englobent le forage, le déplacement de l’appareil de forage et la construction des routes d’accès. Quant aux contraintes, elles portent sur les zones impraticables, les angles maximums et minimums de forage, la profondeur maximale de forage ainsi que le budget. La planification manuelle des trous de forage répondant à ces contraintes est sous-optimale. Cet article présente un cadre relatif à l’optimisation des trous verticaux de forage tenant compte des avantages, des coûts et des contraintes. Cette méthode vise à optimiser la valeur des ressources converties de la phase « ressources présumées » à celle de « ressources indiquées et mesurées ». Ce cadre est appliqué à un gisement aurifère du Nevada et donne de meilleurs résultats que les trous de forage sélectionnés manuellement. INTRODUCTIONDetermining the optimum location of infill drilling has been studied because the high cost of drilling suggests that using fewer drillholes is preferred, and targeting locations of the deposit that are locally uncertain should result in better mine planning decisions and increased profit of the operation. Existing methods for optimizing drillhole locations consider minimizing the kriging variance (KV) as the objective and are mostly restricted to two dimensions (Soltani-Mohammadi & Hezarkhari, 2013a, b; Soltani- Mohammadi, Safa, & Mokhtari, 2016)."

Jan 1, 2018

By Malcolm Black

Introduction The circumstances under which the gold mining industry was forced to curtail operations a few years ago are well known to all. The effect of those circumstances is particularly noticeable when one enters some of the larger mills that were designed, in better times, to treat relatively large tonnages. On their grinding floors one will observe that a number of grinding units are lying idle, and the ravages of rust are everywhere in evidence. The same applies to other equipment throughout these mills. In 1941, we found it necessary to reduce tonnage considerably in the Wright-Hargreaves mill. With the assumption that a lower tonnage would be of long duration, we began to focus our attention on some of the idle equipment with a view to re-arrangement of the flow-sheet for greater economy of operation. In an article by the writer published in the Engineering and Mining Journal (March, April, and May issues, 1939) , it was pointed out that in designing this mill there was a very limited floor space available. The choice of thickening equipment was imposed solely by the necessity for space: conservation. Thickening by gravity would have required 5,000 square feet of floor space, whereas Genter thickeners required only 1,200 square feet. As a consequence, the Genters were chosen. The decision to add flotation to the circuit was made primarily to save space. On a cost-plus-tail basis, 80 to 100 hours agitation on all pulp would produce similar overall results, but would require much more space.

Jan 1, 1948

By D. Bouchard, J. Langlais, A. Lemieux, N. Andrade

A concerted effort between Akan International Limited and the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) has been initiated to develop a liquid-based slurrymaking process, dubbed SEED (Swirled Enthalpy Equilibration Device) for semi-solid forming. The technology is presently entering the industrial and commercial stages, and will be used by the first customers at the end of 2006. Semi-solid processing of aluminium alloys offers many advantages in fabricating economically near-net-shape parts of superior quality. The SEED process helps to overcome problems experienced with thixocasting and especially the high cost of feedstock. The SEED process involves two main steps: 1) heat extraction to achieve a desired liquid/solid mixture, and 2) drainage of an excess liquid to produce a self-supporting semi-solid slug that is formed under pressure. The heat transfer plays an important role (enthalpy equilibrium) during the manufacture of the semi-solid slurry and its analysis is briefly described. The semisolid material is obtained using different processing times and initial conditions. The impact on the solid fraction distribution and the morphological evolution of the microstructure is presented. The influence of the SEED processing parameters (slurry preparation) and the resulting mechanical properties for the alloy A356 are also reported.

Jan 1, 2006

By G. Major-Marothy

"INTRODUCTIONA beneficiation plant to upgrade earthy iron ores is being installed by the Iron Ore Company of Canada in Sept-Iles, Quebec.The crude ore for the plant will come from the Knob Lake area, located in Northern Quebec, where mining has been in progress since 1954.Some 170 million tons of ""direct 11 ores have been mined and shipped in the past eighteen years, with an overall silica content of 7 to 8 percent. No beneficiation - except the reduction of the top size to about 2 inches - took place during this period, but extensive research work has been carried out, in order to find a feasible process.Since “washing"", gravity separation, roasting and magnetic separation experiments did not indicate positive enough results, flotation was tried and found to be feasible.The beneficiation complex being installed will consist of grinding, flotation, dewatering - i.e.: thickening, filtering and drying - balling feed preparation, and agglomeration - i.e.: balling and induration.This process will result in a product superior to the ""direct shipping"" ores and will also expand the ore reserves by allowing material with a higher silica content to be utilized.THE OREThe Knob Lake ores are grouped by mineralogical composition and by grade.BLUE ORES, representing roughly two thirds of the reserves, carry their iron content mostly in the form of massive, blue hematite and martite.YELLOW ORES, about one sixth of the reserves, have predominantly hydrated iron oxides as the iron bearing minerals.RED ORES, the other sixth of the reserves, carry the iron mostly in the form of red hematite.The gangue in all ores is mainly quartz, but aluminum oxides and hydroxides are also present, particularly in the red ores."

Jan 1, 1972

By Yoginder P. Chugh

This paper discusses design of sprays systems for dust control around a continuous miner (CM) in about 4.2 m (14 ft.) high mining areas with about 1.0 m to 2.0 m (3-6 ft.) of out-of-seam dilution mining. The challenges included low air volumes and velocity at the end of the line curtain, dust produced from out-of-seam dilution rock being very fine with 50% of the particles less than 10 micron, poor capture of aerosol through scrubber suction inlets, dust escaping through the sides of the loading pan in mining high areas, overloading of dust-laden air in the wet-scrubber, and dust rollback toward workers. The challenges were resolved through CFD modeling of airflows; improved line curtain installation, redesign and varying the spatial locations of spray systems as compared to low mining height areas. Water sprays on CM is the primary engineering control for dust control in coal mining. In 2010, the authors developed several spray system concepts for dust control (Chugh, Patwardhan, Gurley, & Hirschi (2009), Chugh & Gurley (2009), Chugh 2012). These included increased contact time between dust particles and water droplets, improved potential for the dust aerosol to be sucked in through suction inlets, and reduced dust-roll back to the operators and workers. CFD modeling was used to understand airflow patterns around mining areas and to identify spatial locations for sprays to minimize dust exposure of CM operator (CMO), haulage unit operator (HUO), and workers downwind of the operating CM in the last open crosscut (LOXC). Face area ventilation plays a key role in dilution and removal of dust generated by mining operations. High mining heights and large pillar sizes associated with longwall mining reduce the air volume reaching the face area to achieve good dust dilution.

Aug 1, 2013

By G. S. Hume

THE discovery of natural gas with naphtha in 1924 in the Upper Palaeozoic limestone of Turner Valley, 35 miles southwest of Calgary, has led to continuous developments in this field. Drilling undertaken soon after this discovery demonstrated that the anticlinal structure was in reality a major drag-fold cut off on the east side by a westerly inclined fault of large displacement. The faulted edge of the .limestone at depth determines the eastern limits of the field, which between 1924 and 1936 was shown to have a gas area 14 miles long by about 1 mile wide. Since the strata dip westerly, away from the axis of the fold, drilling becomes progressively deeper to the west and, with the advent of deeper drilling, crude oil was discovered in 1936 on the west flank of the structure but in the same porous reservoir rocks as the gas on the crest and upper parts of the fold. Since 1936, drilling has been undertaken wholly for the production of crude-oil and at present two producing areas have been found within the Turner Valley structure. The larger of these, at the south end of the field, in the vicinity of Highwood river, has a length of about 4 3/4 miles and a proved width of one mile, whereas the smaller, in the north end of the field, south of the north fork of Sheep river, has only a few producing wells.

Jan 1, 1939

By M. W. Grabinsky, B. D. Thompson

ABSTRACT: Use of cemented paste backfill (CPB) offers economic and environmental advantages over other backfill methods. However, many operations have limited knowledge of how their CPB behaves in situ. Therefore, to avoid over-pressuring containment barricades, backfilling strategies necessarily tend to be conservative. In situ monitoring at Barrick Gold Corporation’s Williams Mine and Inmet Mining Corporation’s Cayeli Mine has been conducted and factors controlling barricade pressures are demonstrated, including rise rates, binder content, stope geometry, and tailings properties. The application of barricade pressure monitoring on a stope-by-stope basis can increase backfilling efficiency and, thus, reduce stope cycle times, while maintaining optimal safety.

Jan 1, 2011