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By J. Laganiere

A considerable part of the sulphuric acid requirements of the Aluminum Company of Canada's Arvida smelter comes from the burning of 180-200 tons per day of zinc '"'sulphide concentrates in a 22-ft.-diam-eter fluidized bed roaster. The plant and its operation were fully de-scribed in a publication that appeared about ten year ago (1). A simplified flowsheet of the roasting and gas-cleaning sections of the plant is given in Figure 1. The wet zinc sulphide concentrates are un-loaded into a pug mixer, by means of a Pay loader, and mixed with water in a mixing tank to make a slurry of 80 per cent solids. The slurry is transferred to a .feed tank and then introduced into the roaster at a point four feet above the constriction plate, which is the height of the settled bed of zinc calcines. The roasting temperature is con-

Jan 1, 1963

By D Morgan, K Jones

"In March 2015 Northparkes Mines (NPM) installed a process mineralogy facility on-site. The laboratory included a TESCAN TIMA scanning electron microscope (SEM) and was the first SEM facility to be commissioned on a mine site in Australia. While the initial intent of the quantitative mineralogy laboratory was to provide information to drive processing plant improvements, in practice, it has been utilised for so much more and is now serving as an integral link between departments on-site. This multidisciplinary approach to orebody knowledge is a new strategy for NPM whereby all parts of the value chain are aligned towards the common goal of achieving process efficiency and stability while still maintaining high throughputs. The NPM experience is presented as a case study to illustrate how on-site process mineralogy can drive a realignment in business strategy with a common goal of mill optimisation, stability and more realistic forecasting through orebody knowledge and information sharing between disciplines.Citation:Jones, K and Morgan, D, 2016. On-site Process Mineralogy - Linking Departments and Disciplines with the Common Goal of Increasing Plant Performance, in Proceedings 13th AusIMM Mill Operators’ Conference 2016, pp 149–156 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne)."

Oct 10, 2016

By Gordon Cook

American Electric Power Company (AEP operates 31 coal mines in three states, and some 26 electric generating stations (19 coal-fired) located in the Ohio River Basin. Normally the system burns over 36,071,600 tonnes (40,000,000 tons) of coal and generates in excess of 3.6 X 1018 J (100 billion kwh) of electricity per year. In 1975, AEP, in response to the progressively more stringent air quality requirements of the clean air act, acquired large low-sulfur reserves in Carbon County, Utah (Figure 1. Location Map). Price River Coal Company (PRCC) is the operator OF this multi-seam complex, which is part of the Book Cliffs coalfield at an elevation exceeding 1,829 m (6,000 ft.). The topography is mountainous and divided by numerous canyons. Flat areas are at a premium (Figure 2. Castle Gate Area). Modern high production longwall mining takes in some top and bottom waste, and in this particular operation, it amounts to about 14% of the ROM tonnage.

Jan 1, 1983

By J B. Collier, R M. Fraser, O Dahl, I M. Platten

Grade control is a process of maximising value and reducing risk, through the delivery of quality tonnes to the mill via the accurate definition of ore and waste. It essentially comprises data collection, integration and interpretation; local resource estimation; stope design; supervision of mining and stockpile management. The foundation of all grade control programs should be that of geological understanding led by high-quality mapping and sampling to drive appropriate estimation strategies and mining. Gold veins show various complex features relating to erratic grade distribution (nugget effect), variable geometry and internal architecture. These include variations in dip, strike and width, late-stage faulting/shearing effects and geometallurgy. Such variations generally require close geological understanding to ensure optimum grade, minimal dilution and maximum mining recovery. A well designed grade control program will prove to management and stakeholders that by applying geological knowledge, the mining process can be more efficient and cost effective. This paper reviews the issues of grade control in underground gold mines and focuses on integrated mapping and sampling through three case studies.

Jan 1, 2009

By Steven Doyle

Presentation Outline ?Introduction to Brunswick Mine ?Mining Needs and Drilling Trends ?Maintenance Program ?Back to Basics ?Results ?Additional benefits Introduction Xstrata Zinc Brunswick Mine ?No. 12 deposit discovered in 1953, pilot mining 1957, u/g mining began in 1964 ?Zinc, copper, lead and bulk lead/zinc concentrates ?Since 2007, a fully owned division of Xstrata Zinc Canada ?Over 132Mt milled 3.4 % Pb, 8.8 % Zn and 102 g/t Ag ?Deposit dips approximately 70 degrees; strike length of 1200 m; currently mining from 250 m to 1125 m depth

Nov 1, 2011

By Ilmar J. Martens

The statistical information and cost data used in this report has been made available by NICKDATA INC. Since 1982, NICKDATA INC. of Toronto, Canada, has produced an annual comprehensive nickel industry cost study. Up to date information on 22 mines, 21 smelters, and 16 nickel refineries representing 30 nickel production operations in 17 countries are included in the computerized cost analysis. The report is compiled from information obtained through regular annual visits to major nickel operations and continuous monitoring of information on all nickel producers. The 1984 report which was completed this summer, reveals drastic changes in the nickel industry cost structures.

Jan 1, 1984

By H. D. Freeman

The occurrence of gold in refractory gold ores varies widely and affects the recovery process. The determination of gold and the composition of the associated minerals are important in selecting an appropriate processing scheme. However, locating the gold in an ore sample is a difficult task which requires perseverance, luck, and experience. Our experience has led to the development of a relatively fast and reliable means of deter-mining the mineralogy of ore samples through analysis combining an energy-dispersive x-ray analyser coupled to a scanning electron microscope (SEM). In some cases, a wave length dispersive spectrometer or microprobe is used to further quantify the various mineral compositions. The SEM/microprobe analysis identifies the source of problems that may arise during the recovery of gold from refractory gold ores.

Jan 1, 1981

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 M. M. Fine

The flotation work on samples from nine fluorspar properties in Crittenden and Livingston Counties, Ky., reported herewith was part of a wartime project that resulted in increasing the supply of metallurgical-grade fluorspar. The samples were tailings, dumps, and waste rock that had been rejected in previous milling operations. All were treated successfully by flotation to yield metallurgical-grade concentrates with recoveries ranging from 77.5 to 98.3 percent of the fluorite. After the laboratory testing, the results of which were available to the owners and operators of the properties, many of the tailing ponds and rock dumps were milled. The real value of this report, therefore, is to show the operators of gravity concentration plants the possibilities of re-treating waste products by flotation either at some future time or currently with the gravity

Jan 1, 1948

By Barbara B. Newlin, Emily Rosenberg, Marianne Snedeker

Whose longwalls perform best in Eastern underground mines? What is the latest legislation affecting slurry pipelines? What are the trace element constraints on magma genesis? How can process set points be controlled more economically without affecting product quality? Where can I get a paper presented at the Australian Coal Preparation Conference? If answers to questions like these can help with your management decisions, exploration plans, or market positioning, your firm should know about Information on Demand. Information on Demand, Inc. (IOD) is a research service available to SME members to help them get the facts needed to develop business plans. IOD can function as a research staff and data bank specialist for geologists, planning specialists, production managers, and engineers in all levels of the mining industry. Just dial 415-549-3259 and ask IOD for a copy of an obscure article, a comprehensive literature search, or a background report on a company, a process, or a product. Within a short time, IOD will have the information you need delivered to your office or worksite. Information on Demand has a bank of dial-up terminals that provide access to more than 200 business and technical data bases, including Lockheed's Dialog, CompuServe, InfoLine, The New York Times Information Bank, and other systems. These data banks contain more than 95% of the world's technical literature published in the last 10 years. There is no input required from individuals or companies. The data bases are maintained by publishers and are constantly updated with abstracts of articles, reports and reviews, and other text appearing in more than 5,000 engineering publications, as well as thousands of other trade and technical publications. The data bases are organized by subject and offer a speedy comprehensive survey of world literature. One data base, called Compendex, provides worldwide coverage of engineering publications, meetings, and reports. The Metadex data base abstracts literature on the science and practice of metallurgy, and can be accessed by commercial, compositional, and numerical alloy designations. PatSearch and Claims data bases enable IOD to determine what patents have been filed by a given entity, what international patents are equivalent to a US patent, and other vital patent information. In the non-technical arena, the Commerce Business Daily has daily updates of federal procurement information. The Federal Register is abstracted on-line in a data base, and ABI/Inform is a data base full of marketing and management information for all industries. IOD offers a free pamphlet listing these and other data bases. A typical literature search from IOD will produce 60-200 references with abstracts, and can be printed out off-line and mailed or transmitted directly to an electronic mailbox. Abstracts will often give all the information needed by the reader. At times, when the complete article or technical report is needed for further study, IOD will send a photocopy of the full text for a small additional fee. Patents, books, securities exchange filings, standards, and specifications can also be supplied by means of IOD's network in major libraries, such as Harvard, MIT, and The Library of Congress. A technical translation service is available for foreign

Jan 12, 1983

By Yasushi Ishikawa

The fact that the degree of granulation and the state of granulated particles of sinter raw mixtures are the influential factors in ensuring coke combustibility and permeability during sintering has been clarified. Based on this knowledge, Nippon Steel developed the divided coke-addition process and the technology to utilize binder, and applied them on a commercial scale. Productivity and sinter quality are thereby greatly improved with a significant reduction in fuel consumption.

Jan 1, 1977

By B Klein

This paper stems from research and development in sensor and sorting technologies towards future sustainable mining undertaken by the UBC Mine-Mill Integration group in collaboration with MineSense Ltd. Sensors and sensor-based technologies such as ore telemetry and sorting are envisioned to be a significant component in achieving such ‘invisible’ future sustainable mining. Such technologies offer high flexibility and power in use: delivering valuable information from the very preliminary stages of mining exploration through to final upgrading of the ore preceding the fine comminution stages. This paper reviews sensors and sorting as enabling technologies towards a future smart mining operation and introduces a model in which sensor-based exploration (down-the-hole sensing), ore exploitation (smart-shovels), transportation (smart-conveyors) and preconcentration (sensor-based sorters) are effectively integrated to increase the present value of operations. It is anticipated on the basis of several case studies that an effective use of sensor technologies through tomorrow’s ‘smart mine model’ should lead to several positive impacts ranging from increased mining production, to reductions in transport costs, overall energy use and waste generation. In this way sensors can be used to maximise the profitability and present value of the mining operation from the exploration stage through to mine closure.

Nov 22, 2011

By L. Nahai

COAL, salt, lapis lazuli, and construction materials such as lime, gypsum, slate and stone were the only mineral commodities produced in Afghanistan during 1963. Beryl has been produced sporadically. Small deposits of chromite and lead-zinc are known but remained unexploited because there were no domestic markets for the two commodities and transportation costs from Afghanistan to world markets were too high. Oil fields of sufficient magnitude to justify exploitation have not been discovered, but known natural gas reserves are substantial and have potential significance. There is evidence of large high-grade iron ore resources, but these are in an unfavorable location. The contribution of the mineral industry to the economy was small, although precise figures are not available. The reported value of mineral production in 1963 (excluding barite) was 181.6 million afghanis (about US$4 million). Employment in the industry, including cement plants and quarries, was estimated to be no more than about 2,000.

Jan 1, 1964

By Kevin Telmer, Daniel Merino, Scott Smith

El Aglomerado de Carbón y Aceite (COA) es un método práctico, eficiente y fácil de utilizar para la recuperación de oro libre; el método destaca por el bajo costo y fácil acceso a los insumos utilizados, por eso es considerado una alternativa limpia para el beneficio del oro sin uso de mercurio. El método se basa en la formación de aglomerados o pellets compuestos por carbón, agua y aceite, los cuales capturan partículas de oro libre. Esto ocurre gracias a las propiedades hidrófobas/oleófilas que tiene el oro, que permite adherirse a los aglomerados; el aceite actúa como líquido puente entre el carbón y las partículas de oro, facilitando su unión.

Sep 29, 2023

By Alper Kirmaci, Taghi Sherizadeh, Kutay E. Karadeniz, Dogukan Guner, Samuel Nowak

Injuries and fatalities resulting from roof falls are still a major concern in U.S. coal mines, and many researchers are focused on developing meaningful approaches to minimize this hazard. In the United States, coal mine roofs can vary widely in composition, geometry, and inherent heterogeneity, leading to a wide array of different roof fall failure types. Researchers frequently employ numerical modeling tools to reproduce this physical phenomenon and provide key guides to engineers regarding roof conditions and control as long as the input data and constitutive relations are appropriately selected. Simulating such complexity requires expertise and constitutive models that adequately simulate roof behaviors. However, the currently available constitutive models have shortcomings in capturing some of the roof fall failure types common in underground coal mines, such as guttering. A new constitutive model is developed to address the shortcomings of constitutive models commonly used for coal roof stability analysis. The constitutive model developed in this study combines the anisotropic-elasticity and nonlinear strain-softening responses. In addition, the developed constitutive model can simulate up to three different joint sets implicitly, allowing for use in both continuum and discontinuum settings, and can be used in both Lagrangian finite-volume and distinct element method codes of Itasca. First, the mathematical expressions of the model are provided. Afterward, the validation phase of the developed model that covers comparisons with analytical solutions and those of existing models (e.g., anisotropic elasticity, ubiquitous-joint, and bilinear strain-hardening/softening ubiquitous-joint plasticity) is presented. Finally, a hypothetical coal mine roadway facing high horizontal stress is simulated. The presented model successfully shows three distinct stages of a cutter roof in a shale roof: (1) initiation of shear cracks at the rib– roof intersection, (2) extension of cracks deeper into the roof (i.e., above the roof bolt length horizon), and (3) cantilevered roof. It is demonstrated that the presented constitutive model has the potential to help future researchers in simulating various roof responses.

Jul 1, 2023

By Ana Maria Guilherme Bailon

A coesão entre os grãos de ferro em pelotas queimadas é afetada por mecanismos difusionais dependentes de tempo e temperatura de sinterização e do tipo de elementos presentes na escória. Óxidos presentes nos insumos e no minério exercem influência significativa no processo de difusão das partículas de ferro e na formação de escória, composta principalmente por CaO, SiO2, Al2O3 e MgO. O estudo da influência da escória na microestrutura de pelotas de minério de ferro permite um maior entendimento das principais características relacionadas às fases formadas, que afetarão diretamente sua resistência física e comportamento metalúrgico. Neste trabalho abordamos a influência da variação nos teores de CaO e SiO2 na estrutura das pelotas com o objetivo de verificar a interferência desses compostos na diminuição da energia livre superficial e crescimento de grão bem como na distribuição de porosidade e formação de fases como hematita, sílicatos, ferritos e, eventualmente, a magnetita. Para tal avaliação, pelotas com diferentes teores de escória passaram por caracterização química, análises em Microscópio Óptico e análises em Microscópio Eletrônico de Varredura.

Aug 1, 2018

By Dennis R. Barratt

Rockbolting is now used extensively as a method of primary support in UK coalmines. Over the past fifteen years an optimum bolting system has evolved, based on a high grade steel bolt and a very strong stiff resin. Where necessary, cablebolts are used in conjunction with rockbolts as a supplementary means of support. The rockbolting system, as currently used, is based on a maximum bolt length of 2.4 m whilst cablebolts are generally 6 or 8 m long. Based on the UK experience, there are situations where it is necessary to extend the bolted horizon above that normally achieved with a 2.4 m long rockbolt. Until recently the only options available were coupled rockbolts or cablebolts, both of which have inherent problems in terms of installation. Flexible Strand Rockbolts (FSR), in lengths of 4 to 6 m, provide the means of being able to extend the normal bolted horizon Other advantages include increased strength characteristics (tensile and shear), able to be installed in the UK standard hole size (26-28 mm), encapsulation using resin capsules, thus offering immediate support, high bond strength compared to conventional strand, and able to be installed using existing drilling and bolting equipment. The FSR is considered to be a new concept in terms of strata control and one that compliments the rockbolting system currently in use.

Jan 1, 1997

This paper summarises the influence of slurry rheology on the grinding throughput of batch laboratory and continuous plant-scale mills operating in open and closed circuit configurations. The results of controlled changes in percent solids, particle size, slurry temperature, and viscosity control chemicals are demonstrated. An underlying rheological explanation of the above factors is offered which involves tying the specific rates of breakage that are occurring in the mill with the specific rheological character that the slurry is exhibiting at any given set of operating conditions. Some industrial scale operating guidelines are presented which have proven useful in increasing the net pro- duction capability of grinding circuits.

Jan 1, 1978

By K Peters, C McKenzie

New Zealand has an established history of gold production beginning with the gold rushes of the 19th century in the Coromandel, Nelson/Marlborough, West Coast and Otago regions. Despite this, the number of significant modern hard rock gold operations has been limited in recent years due to a lack of sustained exploration capital and not limited geological prospectivity.The New Zealand Government is actively encouraging explorers to invest in New Zealand through a series of targeted promotional visits, more importantly through the acquisition of precompetitive regional geophysical data. Data collection has been completed over the prospective Northland epithermal district and a large portion of the South IslandÆs west coast that is prospective for both orogenic gold and intrusive related gold.Analysis of new data has been an important component in aiding the generation of exploration targets from prospectivity modelling. Determining the prospectivity of an area involves reviewing all the available data and analysing it with respect to the most up-to-date mineral system model for the mineralisation style of interest. Using the weights of evidence modelling approach, the most prospective areas for epithermal gold-silver, orogenic gold and intrusion-related gold have been identified. The key exploration parameters relevant to each mineral system are first represented spatially and then statistically combined into a single prospectivity map. New potentially economic deposits could be found by focusing exploration on targets identified from these models. The prospectivity modelling approach can greatly reduce the risk involved in mineral exploration.CITATION:Peters, K and McKenzie, C, 2013. New Zealand gold potential - using mineral prospectivity modelling to evaluate gold-bearing mineral systems in an underexplored country, in Proceedings World Gold 2013 , pp 479-486 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Sep 26, 2013

By Sergio Sarmiento

La utilización de los espacios cedidos por las Comunidades Campesinas del entorno de la compañía minera Catalina Huanca y la complicada geografía desarrolllada en estas zonas andinas, generó la búsqueda de métodos de disposición de relaves alternativos y seguros en el desarrollo de sus operaciones mineras. En ese sentido, el presente texto señala la búsqueda de optimización de los relaves y su disposición en proporciones adecuadas para que cumpla con una granulometría adecuada de finos y áridos, de forma que se obtenga una mezcla homogénea que logre una masa de alto grado de cohesión al ser compactados y así minimizar los impactos de los relaves en el medio ambiente.

Oct 21, 2015