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By J. McCreedy

This paper reviews new methods of exploration for metals and new techniques of mining the deposits and extracting the metals from their ores. Examples of mining innovations are taken from Inco's Thompson Operation. The importance of presenting a favorable image of the industry to college students and young people deciding on a career is stressed.

Jan 1, 1971

By Steven D. Botts

The Antamina project, owned by BHP Billiton Plc, Mitsubishi Corporation, Noranda Inc., and Teck Cominco Ltd. , is a $2.3 billion copper/zinc project, located in the Ancash Department in Perú. The project consists of an open pit mine, a 70,000 ton per day concentrator, a 302 Km. long concentrate pipeline, port facilities, a new access road, power line, and town site. The project is designed to produce up to 1.5 million tonnes per year of copper and zinc concentrates over a 23-year project life, and will be the third largest producer of zinc and the seventh largest producer of copper in the world. This mega project is the largest mining investment in the country and, during its construction stage, was the most important construction project worldwide. On May 28th, 2001, Antamina commenced testing operations and four months later, it reached commercial production. Antamina was officially inaugurated on November 14th, 2001 by Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo. The construction stage of the project generated 8,000 direct jobs, with a peak of 10,000 employees, and 30,000 indirect jobs. The permanent workforce consists of approximately 1650 employees, the vast majority of which are Peruvian Nationals; around 30% of whom came from the department of Ancash where the deposit is located. Approximately 5,800 indirect jobs will be generated from the project. Independent sources state that Antamina will increase the Peruvian mining exports by 30% and Peruvian GDP by 1.4% within its first year of full operation in 2002. Since winning the privatization bid for the project in 1996, the company has implemented a successful approach to community development and environmental protection based on sustainable development principals. Throughout the development of the project, a number of initiatives have been undertaken to ensure full involvement of the local populations in community development activities and the company?s environmental program. Due to its size, difficult logistics, cultural considerations and financial aspects, the project has faced a number of unique challenges in the area of environmental protection and management of community interaction. Antamina has been innovative in its approach to these issues, and as a result, has set new standards in Perú for environmental and community management, and sustainable development.

May 1, 2002

By V. Polotski

This paper describes a platform for autonomous operations in open pit mining environments. A typical operation consists of: (1) Initial locomotion toward a remote worksite; (2) Pattern navigation within the worksite; (3) Worksite manipulations and (4) Return locomotion to the start location. The platform includes precise localization module based upon the fusion of odometry, inertial and GPS measurements. The guidance module starts from a set of way points specified on a GPSreferenced map and plans and executes the mission. A typical mission includes specified manipulative tasks along the navigation path. During motion execution the on-board system continuously verifies that the path is free of obstacles and that the hardware is not overloaded. Momentary losses of external positioning measurements does not adversely affect the performance, owing to the redundancy in position and heading estimation. A rehearsal phase follows planning and allows the supervisor to examine the kinematic behavior of the platform during motion, thus reducing the need for continuous monitoring during execution and providing protection against potential losses of communication.

May 1, 2003

By T. Möller

Grinding mills are the heart of the mineral processing plant, and are production-critical machines which are required to achieve high availability. Liner wear life and a liner design that promotes ease of installation are important variables to achieve a high level of mill availability. Increased mill size results in more mill internal surface to protect, and more liner components to install and remove. This drives designers toward an increase in liner size to minimize the number of components to be installed by the liner handler. The liner attachment method can also have a large impact on mill availability as well as safety during installation. This paper outlines the experience from the development, installation and follow-up of liners installed in two 38' x 45' AG Mills at Boliden Aitik in Sweden. A new Poly-Met shell liner concept has been developed to minimize the number of liner components. The new Poly-Met shell liner components are made much larger than conventional Poly-Met or steel liners. This reduces the number of components to be installed/removed by the liner handler and helps to minimize installation time and consequently down- time. A new attachment system has also been developed to eliminate the need for the installation crew to be in the ?drop-zone? of the shell liners while installing the liner bolts. One interesting aspect of this project was the requirement to predict liner life for these new large format AG mills. The existing 22' diameter mills at Aitik provided a base-line reference for this purpose, and DEM studies were used in the project development stage to predict the wear life of shell liners for the new 38' diameter AG mills. The results from this study are included.

Jan 1, 2012

By F. M. Makarinsky

"This paper describes the conversion of conventional froth flotation cells to open-trough type bank cells, with 'buried' vertical metal partitions. These changes have resulted in: total froth removal along the full length of each bank of cells; extended flotation cell retention times; and has extended the life of the metal components, particularly towards the upper flotation cell areas.INTRODUCTIONOver the past twenty years, the flotation cells used at Falconbridge Limited, Sudbury operations concentrators, have gone through major physical changes. The various concentrators generally started with 100 cubic foot Denver Sub 'A' flotation cells. From these units, we progressed to 'converted' DR units, and/or Denver DR units, if purchased new. (Figures 1, 2, 3)In 1980, the Strathcona concentrator started to pay more attention to the 'front end' rougher flotation cells. Initially, the converted DR flotation cells had 'cut-outs' removed (Figure 4) at all upper vertical cell partitions, towards the ff9th lip areas, in order to get additional froth removal."

Jan 1, 1985

By W. H. Moore

It seems necessary, at times, that we should reconsider some of the more obscure causes that lead to explosions of gas and coal-dust in mines, in the hope that a recapitulation will keep before us that old and true saying "eternal vigilance is the price of safety". This explosion, while not extensive (resulting in only two much to be regretted deaths) enlarged our vision as to the possibility and probability of other explosions with more disastrous results. As this is only a partial report I shall have to omit many things that are generally included in describing a mine explosion. The mine was worked exclusively with electric cap-lamps -only firebosses and other officials carried safety-lamps. All shots were examined and fired by firebosses with a small hand-battery. Monobel was used exclusively for blasting, and clay for tamping. The system of haulage iri use was main-rope and winches, horses being employed for gathering. Compressed-air was the motive power for all winches and pumps, excepting the pumps at the shaft-bottom which were steam-driven. The mine was wet with practically no dust anywhere, except what was being made at the coal-face in the getting of the coal. Gas was found occasionally, generally in the brushing, especially where the brushing was carried up to a small seam, 2 to 6 feet above the main seam. The place where the explosion took place was known as Leigh's heading, which was being driven to the rise, immediately inbye of the siding (off No. 1 left, off the new slope) and was about 90 feet up from the level.

Jan 1, 1926

By Javier Ramirez

"Recent R&D pilot plant testing was done to validate a full industrial scale system for recovering residual magnetite from the tails of an iron ore concentration plant. The recovery system is based on an autogenous heavy media separator treating a tailings slurry at 0.45% solids by weight. A 3,100 m3/h capacity concentrator was installed based on the testing findings. Excellent metallurgical results have been observed in two years of continuous operation. This experience is the basis for the proposal of a novel process consisting of the preconcentration of base metals ores; the idea being to obtain a heavy bulk concentrate of the polymetallic minerals and discarding in one step the light gangue mineral components. The bulk concentrate then proceeds to conventional froth flotation. The reduced volumetric flow of the bulk concentrate allows a reduction in the size of the subsequent flotation circuit. A prerequisite for the heavy media separation is a fine size grinding of the ore and a correspondingly high degree of liberation of the mineral species to be recovered. A process scheme is also presented in which the gravity concentrator works in conjunction with a companion tailings thickener for process water recovery. The underflow from this thickener, having paste consistency, can be sent to a tailings dam or mixed with Portland cement for mine backfill. The process water in the system is managed at an estimated recovery in excess of 98%. Additional R&D work using this novel approach is being considered by a large iron ore concentrator for removal of liberated silica from the final concentrate; and for upgrading 3.5 million tons of a marginal hematite reserve owned by the mining company.INTRODUCTIONGravity preconcentration (static and dynamic) of sulphides prior to froth flotation has been and is being practiced at various concentrator plants (Asarco´s Young Mill: heavy media cone; Mount Isa: DSM cyclone; Afton Mines: Denver jigs; Tsumeb Mine: Reichert cone) (Burt, 1984). The idea behind installing preconcentration equipment is to reduce the volume of feed processed on flotation, thus requiring smaller flotation plants although other advantages may be of importance, such as obtaining richer concentrates due to higher grade feed, better process water and energy management, and reduced flotation reagent consumption.The SedconTM solid/liquid separator is a versatile process unit patented in Mexico (MX/u/2007/000305). As a gravity device, it may be classified as an autogenous heavy media dynamic concentrator. Figure 1 depicts the Sedcon (Sedimentador de conos) separator. The four main components are as follows: the feedwell for efficient mixing of the pulp with dilution water and flocculant (and coagulant for water clarification); the inner cones (passive elements for solid/liquid separation); the discharge underflow cone; and the scraper mechanism. The standard discharge cone is a 60° inclined cone for general applications. For paste tailings thickening applications, a deep cone with a 69° inclined cone is used."

Jan 1, 2016

By M. van de Vijfeijken

This paper will first give a short overview of the Copper Mountain project in British Columbia, which just has started commercial operation earlier this year. The grinding process with one 34' x 20' SAG mill and two 24' x 39.5' ball mills will be briefly discussed. All three mills are gear driven by a ring gear, dual pinion and two low speed synchronous motors. Copper Mountain has installed on all three mills, the new state-of-the art dual pinion mill drives. All the inherent operation and maintenance features of this drive technology will be discussed, as well as the advantage of having variable speed control also on the ball mills. The installation and commissioning of the mills and drives at Copper Mountain will be briefly reviewed. Finally the first field measurements on these low speed mill drives will be presented, with the main focus on the low mechanical stress impact of these mill drives on the pinion and ring gear, as well as the accuracy of the load sharing between the two motors.

Jan 1, 2012

By G. J. Hawkes

"We all know that every man who works for us should have a thorough knowledge and understanding of his responsibilities. But how about ourselves? Du we have a thorough knowledge and understanding of our own responsibilities as Mill Superintendents?I once had an occasion to say to a Manager that I did not know something was my responsibility and he replied with suitable emphasis ""Everything inside those four walls is your responsibility"". That makes the extent of our responsibilities clear but does not give us a check list to keep an eye on as we do our job from day to day.What are our responsibilities? I suggest they are the following:1. Developing and maintaining efficient operating and maintenance crews.2. Milling the required tonnage.3. Recovering the economical maximum amount of gold.4. Keeping costs at the economical minimum.5. Seeing that the figures are reasonably accurate for tonnages, assays, production, losses, and costs.6. Preventing accidents.7. Preventing fires.8. Maintaining the equipment and building and keeping them clean and tidy.9. Enforcing company rules and regulations."

Jan 1, 1965

By D. F. Scott

"DEFINITION OF THE REGION AND ITS BOUNDARIESTHE REGION of Western Canada covered by this re-port lies between the Precambrian rocks of the Canadian Shield and the structurally deformed rocks of the eastern Cordillera, extending northward from the international border to the 60th parallel. It is some 487,000 square miles in area, with a total sedimentary fill of about 535,000 cubic miles0>. It includes parts of the prairie provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta and the northeast corner of British Columbia and forms part of the geological region known as the Interior Platform, commonly referred to as the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. The bedrock comprises carbonates and evaporites of Paleozoic age that lie on Precambrian crystalline rocks and are over-lain by a relatively thick blanket of Mesozoic and Tertiary elastic rocks. The nearly flat-lying bedrock, covered by a thick mantle of glacial drift, forms the Interior Plains physiographic province."

Jan 1, 1970

By A. E. Gillis

"Some or all of the following benefits can be expected following application of automatic control to a grinding circuit:1. Maintenance of Optimum Mill Load Level2. Improved Uniformity of Grind3. Increased Productivity4. Decreased Power Costs per Unit of Product5, Reduced Ball Wear per Unit of Product6. Reduced Labour Costs per Unit of Product7. Reduced Operator SupervisionTo establish an indication of the benefits that could be expected through automation of the grinding circuit at East Malartic Mines Ltd. it was agreed that the Department of Mines and Milltronics Limited should jointly conduct a survey of the existing grinding circuit and operation.Aside from establishing feasibility, an important purpose of this survey was to determine costs of a suggested control system that East Malartic Mines Ltd. management might be in a position to assess the economics of the proposal and justification of the investment.The survey involved the taking of sound recordings of rod and ball mills during manual operations, locating circuit bottlenecks, establishing time constants and determining the number and location of sensors for good automatic control."

Jan 1, 1966

By Julie Q. Shang

The electrokinetic (EK) technology for dewatering of two tailings from the uranium mines in Northern Saskatchewan is studied in bench scale experiments. The study includes four phases: 1. Characterization of two uranium mine tailings; 2. Assessment of voltage loss on the coated Ti anode and water interface. 3. EK cell test series to measure electrokinetic permeability (ke) of two tailings; 4. EK dewatering test series to study electrokinetic enhanced gravity dewatering on two tailings samples. The results have demonstrated that both tailings responded positively to the EK process. For the tailings containing gypsum, the EK dewatering should be a short term process (within one hour) with anode conditioning (pH adjustment). The tailings containing clay minerals responded well to EK dewatering, in which pH adjustment is optional and will further enhance the EK flow. Both tailings as tested have low hydraulic conductivity and are particularly suitable for EK dewatering and consolidation.

Aug 1, 2010

By R. A. L. Drew, J. P. Immarigeon, F. Jalilian, M. Jahazi

In the present work TLP bonding of Inconel 617 is investigated. The influence of the main processing parameters i.e. time and thickness of the interlayer were studied with optical and scanning electron microscopy. Boron containing interlayers with two different thicknesses were used and the influence of various holding times from 5 min to 24 hours on the microstructure of the bond region was investigated. The results indicated that, for the testing temperature of 1065°C and holding times above 2 hours with an interlayer of 25.4 microns thick no liquid phase was observed. The same phenomenon occurred only after 6 hours for a 76.2 microns thick interlayer. Precipitate growth started at grain boundaries and continued inside the grains. The composition, size and morphology of the precipitates were studied using electron microprobe analysis. No noticeable changes were observed in the grain size of the base metal with increasing holding times.

Jan 1, 2004

By Dwayne D. Tannant

This paper presents a summary of results from a questionnaire sent to surface mines in western Canada seeking information on haul road design, construction, and maintenance. There has been a marked increase in the size of the trucks used over the last decade with some mines now using trucks with a payload capacity of 360mt. Consequentially, geometrical elements of haul roads, such as width, have been enlarged to accommodate larger trucks. Most haul roads are constructed on the basis of past experience without use of formal design procedures. With the introduction of larger haul trucks, problems related to rolling resistance, deterioration, and maintenance of the haul roads have become more important. This has lead to adoption of more rigorous design methods for roads at some mines, most notably for the oil sand mines operated by Syncrude Canada Ltd. A summary of the evolution of haul road designs implemented at Syncrude Canada Ltd. is presented.

May 1, 2001

By Martin P. O'Connell

"IT IS INDEED A PRIVILEGE to address a group representing a sector of the Canadian economy so important as is the mining sector. Important, not only today, but certainly of great importance for the future development of Canada, for employment, for our trade balance and indeed, when one looks at what we are calling increasingly an industrial strategy, for the future. Surely mining will have a very significant role to play in fulfilling that. It's of special interest to me, as the Minister of Labour - and I ought to confess at the very beginning that I am just two months into this function - of special interest for me to know that you are giving such attention to labour-management relations. I think it is timely that, from my point of view at least, you do this, because for the first time in twenty four years major revisions of the Canada Labour Code as it relates to industrial relations and disputes settlements are currently in the House of Commons going through their second reading, after an easier introduction and some changes which I would be very pleased to describe later this morning. It is very timely too, I think, that we should be looking at this area because public interest is certainly at a high level. It is not only at a high level but it expresses a good deal of irritation with the current status and procedures and results in collective bargaining and there is some urgent search for more sophisticated or modified procedures for settling differences in labour-management relations. The public wants different kinds of results. I think that is apparent to all of us. They want results in terms of justice and equity on both sides. And it means that a Minister of Labour and certainly governments who often are representing, or are the third party in discussions, have a very important and complex role to play in attempting to create a balance as these two parties come to contracts and come to agreements."

Jan 1, 1972

By Lorna Ortiz-Soto

A series of titiania- and silica-supported Au, Pt and Pt-Au catalysts prepared through different synthetic routes have been investigated in terms of their structural properties, adsorption of CO, and catalytic activity for the selective catalytic reduction of NO by propylene and the oxidation of and CO. Catalysts prepared by incipient wetness impregnation from individual Pt and Au precursors, exhibited characteristics very similar to those of monometallic Pt catalysts. This behavior is consistent with a model in which the two metals remain segregated due to their miscibility gap, and only Pt participates in the adsorption of CO and the reactions under consideration. In contrast, catalysts prepared from a Pt2Au4(C=CtBu)8 organo-bimetallic cluster precursor exhibited different behavior both in terms of CO adsorption and their catalytic activity for the three reactions examined. The combination of the kinetic, spectroscopic and structural characterization data suggests that in this case Pt and Au remain intimately mixed in the form of Pt-Au bimetallic particles, and that the presence of Au modifies the behavior of Pt.

Oct 1, 2003

By Louise Corriveau

Exploration strategies have traditionally considered felsic gneiss complexes of the Canadian Shield sterile. This paradigm is challenged with the discovery of extensive granulite-facies Cu-Au, Fe oxides-bearing hydrothermal systems in the 1.4 Ga Bondy and 1.5 Ga La Romaine volcano-plutonic complexes of the Grenville Province. Early identification of magnetite-rich units in association with meta-exhalite and pelite-like units was key to targeting the search for mineralization, protolith information and indicators of pre-metamorphic hydrothermal activity during regional surveys of these frontier terrains. Textural evidences for a volcano-plutonic setting were found. There remained, however, numerous impediments to the recognition that the ubiquitous magnetite-laden units and associated aluminous gneiss were hydrothermal in origin. Many metamorphic reactions form magnetite at the amphibolite to granulite facies transition, and hydrothermally-leached rocks resemble metapelite or migmatitic restite, while carbonate alteration zones may look like marble or calc-silicate rock. Non-typical metamorphic mineral assemblages, modes and colours arise when hydrothermally-derived rock types are metamorphosed. These effective markers served as tools for reliable field identification of hydrothermally-altered rocks. In our case-studies, we traced pre-metamorphic hydrothermally-driven Fe-oxide precipitation in association with sericitization, albitization, pyrophyllite alteration, chloritization, and B enrichment by mapping unusually high contents of (1) magnetite or hematite, (2) biotite, (3) albite, (4) sillimanite, (5) orthopyroxene or phlogopite with cordierite, and (6) tourmaline or kornerupine. The unveiled garnetite, tourmalinite, and aluminous gneiss had assemblages that vary according to metamorphic grade and composition. To assess if high mode of Fe-Mg-Al phases resulted from partial melting (restitic residue) or metamorphism of hydrothermal rocks, we compared leucosome mineral assemblages, shape and amount with that expected of in situ partial melting reactions. In both areas there is no compelling evidence for these units to be restites. In contrast, the presence of lapilli in garnet-cordierite-sillimanite gneiss, though extremely rare, constitutes conclusive evidence for extreme pre-metamorphic high-sulphidation alteration of a volcanic protolith, while Fe-oxides or sillimanite-bearing nodules and veins record a less pervasive alteration. Geochemical research on element mobility and mass balance calculations further testified of an hydrothermal origin for these gneisses. The magnetite-rich units, together with calc-silicate rocks, garnetite, hornblendite, albitite among amphibolite, provided effective guides to sites of fluid discharge and led to the discovery of Cu and Cu-Au showings. With the presence of highsulphidation alteration, these features suggest early Cu-Au VHMS-type alteration halos within a predominantly felsic composite volcano-plutonic arc setting for both case-studies. Evidences for subsequent F-driven orthomagmatic fluid activity are also present.

May 1, 2003

By Chun-Sheng Liao, Chun-Hua Yan, Sheng Wu, Fu-Xiang Cheng

"INTRODUCTIONChina is providing more than 90% of the rare earth products consumed in the whole world. Acidic extractants are commonly used in the extraction separation of rare earths. Saponification of the acidic extractants by basic substances is usually necessary for the purpose of increasing and stabilizing their extraction capacity, and meanwhile inorganic acids are required for both scrubbing and stripping. Thus acids and bases are the main consumed chemicals, and the resulting salts are the main pollutants generated by rare earth separation processes. Currently, due to increasing environmental concerns in China, rare earth solvent extraction separation techniques are being developed to reduce both consumption and emission of chemicals, which is driving the developments on both theories and processes for solvent extraction separations.In the 1970s Prof. Xu et al. developed the Theory of Countercurrent Extraction (Xu, Li, & Yian, 1985). In recent years, the development of novel processes for rare earth separation has moved beyond the earlier theory. One rare earth separation process, the so-called hyperlink process, has been developed in the past decade and proven in industrial practice to dramatically reduce both the consumption and emission of chemicals during multi-component solvent extraction separations, and therefore is now widely used in the Chinese rare earth separation industry (Liao, Wu, Cheng, Wang, Liu, Zhang, & Yan, 2013). The present article will give a brief review of the development of the theory of the hyperlink processes, and the hyperlink separation flowsheets for typical rare earth mines in China designed using the theory.HYPERLINK PROCESSES (LIAO et al., 2013)A flowsheet of multiple-component separation consists of a couple of separation units. The units of a conventional flowsheet separately consume chemicals for saponification and scrubbing and discharge wastewater with resulting salts. In contrast, the separation units in a hyperlink process are hyperlinked and thereby the chemical demands of the whole flowsheet are decreased. For a feed containing t components of A1, A2, …, and At, it has been proved in theory that the separation mode of (AtAt-1…A2)/(At-1At-2…A1) is preferred in a single separation unit. The hyperlinking between separation units can have two forms. The link between two units locating at a same separation level, such as between (A4A3)/(A3A2) and (A3A2)/(A2A1), is known as horizontal hyperlinking. The link between two units located on different levels, such as between (A4A3A2)/(A3A2A1) and (A3A2)/(A2A1), is known as vertical hyperlinking. Both the hyperlinking forms have been proven to save chemical usage and consequently to lower the pollution emissions in industrial practices as well as in theory."

Jan 1, 2016

The Red Lake greenstone belt is an irregular mass of lavas sedimentary rocks and intrusives which is approxiately 35 miles long 18 miles wide and 7 miles deep. Basaltic volcamcs are the oldest rocks w1thm the belt. They are believed to have been laid down on an ancient crust which is at least 3 billion (3 x 109) years old and was composed partly of sediments. The basaltic rocks are overlain by acid volcanics and sedimentary rocks which have been complexly folded and are preserved as a down-folded remnant of younger rocks within the older crust. The volcanics and sedimentary rocks of the greenstone belt have been cut by intrusives with a wide range of composition. The emplacement of the intrusives and the accompanying regional metamorph-ism which terminated the orogenic activity in this area are believed to have occurred approximately 2.4 billion years ago. The basalts and many of the basic and ultrabasic intrusives undoubtedly had their source in the sub-crust or mantle. At least some of the granitic intrusives are believed to have had

Jan 1, 1965

By R. Therrien, L. Gosselin, J. Raymond

ABSTRACT: The ground-source heat pump is a low-carbon technology that uses the earth’s renewable geothermal energy to heat and cool buildings, with an ef?ciency 3 to 4.5 times that of conventional systems. These high performances are achieved by exchanging heat with the earth using a ?uid that is groundwater, surface water or closed loop water. Expensive installations, such as water wells or buriedcoils, are however necessary to transport the ?uid in and out of the earth, making ground-source heat pumps more costly than conventional systems. Installation costs can be reduced in mining environments due to the abundance and the accessibility of resources to be used with heat pumps. Examples of system design calculations using data from the Mouska and Doyon mines in Abitibi show signi?cant installation cost savings using dewatering mine water or ground heat exchangers installed below oxidizing waste rocks. Ground-source heat pump technology is reviewed and scoping calculations are presented to illustrate how such systems can be installed in mining environments.

Jan 1, 2010