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THE slag from the blast furnaces having been granulated, a representative sample is taken to the sample mill. It is then dried, crushed through a 100-mesh screen, intimately mixed, and packeted for assay purposes.METHOD OF ANALYSISINSOLUBLEWeigh 1 grm. of the finely-pulverized slag into a 3t-in. casserole, moisten with a little water to prevent sticking, cover with a clock glass, and add 20 cc. of hot acid (1 HNOs, 3 HCI, 4 H2 0). Evaporate slowly to dryness on a hot plate and bake (without overheating) until all the gelatinous silica is dehydrated. Cool, add 20 cc. HCI (1-1), and boil gently for several minutes; filter into a 300-cc. beaker, cleaning out the casserole thoroughly with a rubber-tipped glass rod. Wash residue with hot distilled water and transfer it to a No. 1 porcelain crucible. Dry, ignite, cool in a desiccator and weigh as total insoluble matter. Dilute filtrate to 200 cc. and neutralize some of the excess HCI with NHa.OH. Warm, and pass H2S for 15 min. Filter and wash withhot water. Boil off H2 S, oxidize with 5 cc. HNOll , reduce bulk of the solution by evaporation. to about 100 cc., and transfer to a 250 cc. flask.SILICAFuse insoluble residue over a blast lamp in a platinum crucible with three or four times its weight of anhydrous carbonate of soda, for 10 to 15 minutes, or until decomposition is complete. Cool, and extract fusion in an 8-in. evaporating dish with HCI (1-1); rinse crucible and cover with distilled water, and evaporate to dryness over a water bath. Take up dry mass with 10 cc. strong HCI, and then.

Jan 1, 1922

The Drake-Rivertree area lies in the far north east of the New England district of New South Wales. Drake is some 500 miles north of Sydney by road and 36 miles west of Lismore. Rivertree is situated 24 miles north of Drake.The Drake deposits were first worked in 1878 for gold which occurred in a very fine state in ferruginous gossan but at depth copper ore became more significant. The lodes at Rivertree, discovered in 1887, were worked for silver but mixed sulphides became more prominent in deeper levels.Several mines operated at each centre and each locality smelted its own ore.The mines at both centres were operated sporadically for many years though production was not particularly substantial.A number of the larger mining companies have shown a recent interest in this mining field with special emphasis on the Drake locality.GENERAL GEOLOGYThe two mining centres are situated to the north and south respectively of a belt of Permian marine sediments and volcanics similar to, and probably representing an easterly extension of, the rocks of the Emmaville district further west.E. C. Andrews (1907) recognized two stratigraphic units within what he called the Drake Series. The Lower Division consists of rhyolite flows, tuft's, breccias and agglomerates, followed by trachytic and andesitic tuft's containing cladochonns, thanmopora willcinsoni and other Permian forms.

Jan 1, 1962

In the sixteenth century the Spanish Captain da Alvaro Soavedaro, on a search for the explorer Ferdinand Magellan, came across the main island of New Guinea which he named Isla del Oro (Island of Gold). Since that time exploration for, and mining of, gold has been pursued by many, culminating in . the development of major world-class projects in the latter part of the 20th century. Though various prospectors have panned for gold and small gold mining projects were undertaken through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was not until the 1880's when mining became a more concerted economic venture. Misima and Woodlark Islands in Milne Bay, Gura-Ackera and Yoada in Oro, and Lakekamu in Gulf Province and Keveri in Central Province were all gold producers by late nineteenth century. It was in the 1920's that corporations began mining in PNG and with the commencement of production at Panguna in Bougainville in 1972 a new era of mega-project mining began.' Today there are two large mining projects producing mainly gold and copper. The first, already mentioned, is Panguna on Bougainville Island. This project has provided Government with $US 475 million in taxes. ok Tedi is the second large mine development located in Western Province. It began production in 1984 with the extraction of the deposit's "gold Cap".

Jan 1, 1987

By J Bohm, B Csoke, I Tarjan

In process technology, especially in coal preparation, it is often necessary to have a continuous knowledge of the average density of granular material in order to achieve both quality control and process control. The paper presents a new method and means supported by laboratory measurements for the rapid, practically continuous, determination of the average density of continuously supplied granular material through frequent sampling.

Jan 1, 1993

By P Nissen, T Jenke, M Ralph, M Cattani, M Quinlan

The West Australian Government hold an annual ‘Mines Safety Roadshow’ around the State’s regions and the capital city, Perth. Each year presenters provide an update on legislation and safetyrelated themes. A recurring theme is the mining industry fatality rate. Professor Michael Quinlan’s ‘Ten Pathways to Death and Disaster’ (Quinlan, 2014) has been referenced regularly to assist in structuring workshops and conversations concerning fatality prevention in the mining industry. The ‘Ten Pathways’ are the outcome of an analysis of fatal injuries in the mining industry, which identified a series of common themes to the fatalities: Pathway 1: Design, engineering, technical and maintenance flaws. Pathway 2: Prior warnings or causes for alarm ignored. Pathway 3: Failures in risk assessment. Pathway 4: Failures in management systems and hazard management plans. Pathway 5: Failures in auditing. Pathway 6: Economic pressures compromising safety. Pathway 7: Failures in regulatory oversight and inspection. Pathway 8: Worker and others expressing concern prior to the incident. Pathway 9: Poor management – worker communication and trust. Pathway 10: Emergency and rescue resources and procedures. To determine a fatality risk profile we asked participants at the Mines Safety Roadshows to indicate their perception of their employer’s performance in each of the Ten Pathways. We administered the questionnaire at the Mines Safety Roadshows in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2023. In this paper, we report on the results of the questionnaires, and suggest how organisations can improve their fatality risk score.

Apr 16, 2024

By Rashkovski GB

Until recently amalgamation has been the main process forextracting large gold particles from gravity concentrates obtainedduring the dressing of ores and placer gold deposits.Development of new technology for treating the gravityconcentrates was necessary because of the harmful effect ofmercury on subsequent production processes and theenvironment. The harmful effect of mercury is particularlyevident in the resin-in-pulp process that is widely applied inRussia.

Jan 1, 1993

By S Walters

The emerging discipline of ‘geometallurgy’ is not new but is becoming increasingly recognised as a discrete and high-value activity. Geometallurgy involves a quantified and spatially constrained approach to ore characterisation in terms of relationships to critical processing performance behaviours. A key outcome is enhanced economic optimisation of mining and improved risk management tools.Industry recognition of the need for large-scale, integrated research to support this emerging area resulted in commencement of a major ongoing initiative in mid-2005. The AMIRA International P843 ‘GeMIII’ project (Geometallurgical Mapping and Mine Modelling) is a cross-discipline collaboration involving a number of world-class research organisations supported by over 20 industry sponsors.The project is delivering integrated tools and methods which link intrinsic rock characteristics to prediction of mineral processing performance. These indices must be capable of spatial distribution in 3D resource models and incorporation into mine planning and optimisation. A key aspect is provision of new cost-effective tools and methods which can provide the large numbers of measured and estimated data points required to undertake effective modelling and spatial distribution. The integrated methodology and enabling technologies being developed through the ongoing AMIRA GeMIII project are outlined, together with implications for supporting industry best practice.

Sep 5, 2011

Strong markets for metals and energy over the past five years have supported equity and debt market funding to enable a new group of mining juniors to emerge in control of economic resources, some in regions with high investment risk. As companies drive these projects to development, production and positive operating cash flow, their Boards and CEOs are confronting important questions:Having achieved initial success, what is our longer term purpose as a company? Does the purpose originally described in the Initial Public Offering to raise equity remain wholly relevant? Given that purpose, how do we understand the available sets of opportunities and related risks? Should we be acquiring new assets or other companies, or developing the existing portfolio? What commodity sectors and geographies should we focus on? Or should we be conserving funds until asset prices or project costs provide greater assurance of value to shareholders? How do we translate that purpose into tangible goals that shape and direct the work of people in the organisation? How do we get the right work done in the face of high turnover and competition for capable staff? Drawing on the authorÆs career experience and on work undertaken by Heuris Partners, this paper provides a practical CEO framework for strategy development, organisation design and on planning the work of the business in the mining industry.

Jan 1, 2006

The following is a discussion of a new approach to safety when developing or applying a new mining technology. In the form of an engineering process, the following approach had its inception in the military and aviation industries and is also very strongly evident in the chemical industry.The process has been developed and applied in the mining industry by the author. It is called 'Incremental Development and Management of New Technology'.The process is a composite of carefully selected System Safety Management, System Engineering and Financial techniques and methods. It consists of modules which can be modified to suit the requirements of a specific project. Modules provide an organised framework of activities to facilitate a gradual acquisition of pertinent knowledge and information and to enable progressive evaluation or verification of produced outcomes against specified requirements.

Jan 1, 1992

Introduction The mine winder is an essential element in the mining of ore in deep level mines and therefore requires a high degree of reliability to avoid interruption of production. Failure of any component on a winder may also be dangerous and expensive to repair. The larger the failure the larger the stoppage. The failure of a winder drum is the ultimate catastrophe, not only because of the cost of replacement, but also because of the lead time in procuring a new drum. Today these types of failure are not as common but many failures have occurred in the past and even today many an old winder is con- sidered for a new and often more arduous duty. As far back as the turn of the century a lot of information had been gathered to try and clear up the complexities of the multi- layering effect of coiling rope under tension onto a drum. Before comparing results obtained by various researchers the nature of the pressure distribution between rope and drum due to multi-layering will be discussed briefly.

Jan 1, 1987

By F Anthes, U Barow

Two tunnels are being bored using a æHydroshieldÆ in section 3.1 of the extension of the Underground railway line 5. At the end of the two tunnels, directly in front of the Hotel Adlon, the shields cannot be retrieved. The steel shell of the shield will be left in place within a sealed concrete block and the reusable components taken out through the completed tunnel. For the first time in Germany, an Underground tunnel is being lined solely by means of UNI rings. BerlinÆs Underground network is 165 km long and has 167 stations. Some 450 million passengers are transported annually. On account of the urban planning modifications that followed reunification, the network has to be adjusted, particularly in the city centre. The most significant project is the extension of the U5 from Alexanderplatz to the Lehrter Bahnhof. After completion, the U5 will be a continuous east-west traffic artery. It will provide a direct link with the new parliamentary and government district, open up new business districts and the cultural centre of the city.

Jan 1, 1999

Detailed cash flow forecasts have always been almost essential as a basis for judging the viability of proposed new mining projects. In recent years attempts have been made explicitly to take account, in such forecasts, of the uncertainties surrounding the assumptions upon which they are based. With the risk analysis approach, Monte Carlo simulation of the cash flows indicates in probability terms the combined effect of these uncertain basic assumptions. While the use of risk analysis has been widely discussed, few specific applications to real projects have been reported. The application of such an analysis in the feasibility study of the large new Deelkraal gold mine presently being established on the Far West Witwatersrand gold fields by the Gold Fields Group in South Africa is described in the paper. The paper also indicates how one of the major sources of uncertainty, namely the gold content of the ore, can be`quantified in objective probability terms. This feature distinguishes the application fran other published accounts in which only subjective probability assessments have been utilised.

Jan 1, 1977

The Golden Cross is the first large precious metals mine to be both commissioned and closed in the æmodernÆ era in New Zealand. This paper discusses the life cycle of the Golden Cross mine, with emphasis on the closure process and post closure management.   The closure process has generally been very well managed, and successful, but in spite of that some on-going issues remain unresolved. Nearly nine years after the end of mining the mine owners are still actively managing the site, with no immediate end to that in sight.   The site has been described as atypical, due to the identification of a deep seated landslide below the tailings and waste rock storage facilities. However that should not be given too much emphasis when addressing the overall closure and post-closure management issues, which could well apply to other existing and future mine sites in New Zealand.   The Golden Cross can provide valuable lessons for other miners, and the issues arising at this site should be watched closely by the industry as a whole.

Jan 1, 2006

In Australia, current production of rare earth element (REE) minerals, monazite and xenotime, occurs as by-product from titanium-enriched placers and beach sands. Undeveloped REE resources are associated with carbonatites, alkaline igneous rocks, pegmatites, phosphorites, cemented fluvial sandstones, and uranium mineralisations. The REE are held within a range of minerals including silicates, phosphates, a1uminophosphates, carbonates, and oxides. The development of these REE resources may require new processing and extraction methods. The distribution of REE in the currently mined ore minerals, monazite and bastnaesite, does not match that requested by the market. Exploration for new REE resources should be focused on ores with more marketable REE distributions, particularly with heavy REE, neodymium, samarium, europium and yttrium enrichments. Such ores occur within alkaline igneous rocks, in laterites overlying carbonatites and alkaline igneous rocks, and in placers derived from low-grade regional and contact metamorphic sediments. Lateritic REE deposits may be easily and economically mined by shovel in open pits and are unlikely to require extensive crushing and milling. In addition, lateritic REE clay deposits may be processed by simple hydrometallurgicaltreatment mehtods.

Jan 1, 1991

By M Slight, H Lacy

In recent times, with the global mining industry’s focus on sustainable development there has been a significant focus on mine closure and rehabilitation performance and reporting through the development of the International Council on Mining Metals (ICMM), the Global Reporting Initiative and the Equator Principles. In addition, financial reporting obligations under International Financial Reporting Standards and the Sarbanes Oxley Act (2002) have also led to better understanding and improvements with industry closure performance, liability management and reporting.Under these sustainable development principles and financial reporting obligations, mining companies are required to consider mine closure planning and associated cost estimates across all life cycle phases of the mine. Internal processes have been developed within mining companies to better understand their closure liabilities and obligations and likely costs and cost estimating processes are generally developed for long-term life-of-mine (asset) planning and budgeting, financial reporting for corporate balance sheet provisioning purposes, and regulator reporting for environmental bonding and financial assurances.These days mining companies need to plan for, prepare and actually mine for closure right from the start of a project. This means that their closure and rehabilitation liabilities throughout each stage of the mine life cycle phases must be understood, planned for, managed and controlled.So how is the industry performing? Understanding of closure liabilities is improving and reflected in liability cost estimations that are recognising the likely issues to be faced at closure, but there is a way to go to ensure that the industry doesn’t add to the increasing legacy liabilities being passed onto the wider community.CITATION:Slight, M and Lacy, H, 2016. Closure liabilities – where are we at?, in Proceedings Life-of-Mine 2016 Conference , pp 28–30 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jun 28, 2016

XstrataÆs Mount Isa Copper Operations (MICO) is a world-class mining operation producing in excess of six million tonnes of copper ore per annum from its underground mining operations. The Mount Isa Copper Mines have been producing from the underground operations since 1952. Current copper reserves are 87 million tonnes at 2.8 per cent Cu, extending the mineÆs life beyond 2018. The underground orebodies in the copper mines are divided into nine distinct areas and are mined by sublevel open stoping techniques. One of the nine areas is the hanging wall lens, which consists of two sections; a northern lens (NHWL) and a southern lens (SHWL). The SHWL has a proven reserve of 2.2 million tonnes with an average grade of 2.9 per cent copper. Stopes in the SHWL have an average size of approximately 245 000 tonnes and will be extracted in a primary-secondary mining sequence, producing ore until 2009. This paper discusses various aspects of stope design applied in the southern hanging wall lens, including sequencing options and the rationale for the selected sequence. Design features are also discussed and how they have evolved as more is learnt about the SHWL orebody. These include mass firing techniques, focusing on minimising ground vibrations, using seed wave form analysis and prediction. Rock mechanics issues will also be discussed, in particular the reinforcement of stope hanging walls and the use of instrumentation to monitor behaviour within the hanging wall.

Jan 1, 2006

By Moore A. J

Blasting in mines in an urban environment can be conducted safely and within regulatory vibration limits by careful attention to detail and the application of correct techniques. Factors affecting blast vibration are described using surface and underground mining examples. An understanding of these factors provides an essential base for effective planning and operational control. Techniques are described for assessing and predicting vibration levels and the presentation of data for planning purposes such as environmental impact statements for new projects and the protection of buffer zones around existing operations.

Jan 1, 1997

By Woodcock JT, La Broody SR

As part of a project on the application of thiourea leaching to a variety of Australian ores, the systematic variation of pH, redox po- tential, and thiourea concentration were in- vestigated on an oxidized gold ore from the Nevoria mine, WA. Stirred open beaker tests were conducted with a pH-stat and Eh-stat system to automati- cally control pH and redox potential at selected values, while thiourea concentration was main- tained manually. Increasing the acidity of the leach liquor from pH 3.6 to pH 1, increased the gold extrac- tion from 37 per cent to over 90 per cent in S h, but there was only a limited improvement below pH 1.5. Silver extraction and thiourea consumption increased as the acidity was in- creased. Increasing the redox potential from 150 to 200 mV (i.e. potential of Pt electrode vs SCE) increased the initial rate of gold and silver extraction, but the effect on cumulative gold extraction by 5 h was slight. Thiourea consump- tion was greatly increased as the redox poten- tial was increased. An increase in thiourea concentration from 1.2 to 4.8 per cent increased the initial rates of gold and silver extraction, but, as for the change in Eh, the improvement in cumulative ex- traction by 5 h was marginal. Thiourea consump- tion increased with thiourea concentration.

Jan 1, 1984

By T Napier-Munn, D J. Bradshaw, M Chauhan, L Keeney

An important aspect of geometallurgy is quantifying mineral processing attributes, which leads to improved orebody understanding. One of these attributes is flotation performance. Several methods have been developed as indicators for flotation performance, including batch testing leading to kinetic information and the standard grade-recovery curve. This paper makes a preliminary statistical comparison between a newly proposed geometallurgical batch flotation procedure and the æstandardÆ batch flotation test commonly used to measure flotation performance in the laboratory. The new test uses much less material than the standard test, and is much faster. It is concluded that the new method follows the final recovery of the standard method well, suggesting that it will be effective in reflecting ore variability for geometallurgical purposes. Comparison of the methods based on the full grade-recovery curve shows less agreement, but this may be due to the fact that the curve is sensitive to the particular experimental set-up and conditions, which make such comparisons quantitatively challenging. Further development work is therefore planned.CITATION:Chauhan, M, Napier-Munn, T, Keeney, L and Bradshaw, D J, 2013. Progress in developing a geometallurgy flotation indicator, in Proceedings The Second AusIMM International Geometallurgy Conference (GeoMet) 2013 , pp 201-206 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Sep 29, 2013

By R Farana

The future challenges in mining instrumentation, mainly on future intelligent mines, are to continue providing instruments with the highest level of reliability at the lowest possible cost, and also to take advantage of technology existing in other industries and to adapt it to the mining context. New wireless instruments (smart sensors, smart actuators, smart controllers) would also be very useful, as well as instruments fully adapted to the monitoring of large movements that are observed, in both underground and open pit mines. Mining instrumentation is found to various degrees in most mines, both open pit and underground. Smart mining instruments present a certain number of aspects specific to the environment in which the instruments are installed. Namely, the instruments can be installed either for short-term or long-term purposes. The mining industry is always looking for useful instruments that can provide relevant information on ground behaviour adjacent to mining stopes or permanent infrastructure. The instruments must meet the various criteria, and must also evolve with the new mining technologies that are continuously being implemented. A strong collaboration between the mining industry, research organisations, and instrument manufacturers is the key to meeting these objectives. This contribution describes the current trends on smart sensors and smart instrumentation with Wireless LAN support.

Jan 1, 2003