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By Bradford C. Wesstrom

The extraction of metals from Copper Refinery Slimes may involve many different processes. This paper describes the use of pressure leaching for decopperizing of copper refinery slimes at the El Paso Refinery. Process equipment will be described, along with the process chemistry, unit operations and unit processes associated with the decopperizing process. Copper contained in the raw slimes ranges from 15-35%. After autoclaving less than 1 % copper remains.

Jan 1, 2000

By B. C. Lewis

When John F. Kennedy made this statement, I am sure he was not thinking about the valuation of limestone reserves. However, it is certainly applicable. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate how the discomfort of thought (i.e., the analytical and methodical process performed by a reputable professional) builds the foundation for an opinion that provides assurance as to the value of a property. In its final form, a valuation is nothing more than an opinion. The credence of that opinion is directly proportional to the knowledge of the appraiser and the efforts and judgment extended in developing said opinion. Presented herein are the methodologies for formulating a defensible opinion. Before detailing the valuation process, an overview of the limestone industry is presented along with some historical parameters relating to the industry. Secondly, the most widely used valuation methodologies and a brief discussion of each are presented. Two case studies are then presented, which review actual valuation studies. The paper concludes with how the valuation process should be published in a report format that is defensible from a legal standpoint, bankable from a financial standpoint, and decipherable from a layman's standpoint.

Jan 1, 1989

By Ralph S. Siegrist

For the past 30 years the construction industry has used steel supports in rock and soft ground to expedite driving tunnels under many difficult conditions. The industry has had a definite advantage in that it bids its work in accordance with the type of job to be encountered. The mining industry has had to keep its progress in line with the economics imposed by the price of the commodity it mines. Even so the mining industry, particularly metal mining, has been using steel support. Timber was universally used because of availability and cheapness, but as timber became scarce and labor more expensive-it takes more time to erect timber support-steel gradually replaced timber.

Aug 1, 1956

By James Douglas

No one mill attribute it to the partiality of friendship if I claim for Thomas Sterry Hunt the right to a place among that little band of men whom nature has endowed with what seems an almost magical power of insight into her mysteries. But those of us who knew him well, while me never ceased to wonder at the breadth of his genius, the fertility of his imagination, and the wonderful capacity of his memory, learned that these native powers would have availed little to win him his rank in science, had they not been stimulated by ceaseless mental activity, indomitable perseverance, and unflagging industry. Thomas Sterry Hunt was born in Norwich, Connecticut, on September 5, 1826. He came on his mother's side from that good old stock which gave to Puritan England the gentle mystic Peter Sterry and that uncompromising preacher Thomas Sterry, who wrote the notable tract, " The Rot among the Bishops " in 1667, and that gave to New England Consider and John Sterry, the mathematicians. While lie was a child the family moved to Poughkeepsie on the Hudson. There the father died when Thomas, the oldest son, was twelve. The mother and her family of six young children returned to the old home in Connecticut. For a short time Thomas attended the public school; but it was for a short time only, as he, thus early, was required to share the burden of the family support and to seek employment. This he found first in a printing-office, then with an apothecary, afterwards in a book-store. The surroundings may have been congenial, but the occupation probably was not; for he re-

Jan 1, 1893

By Frederick B. Brien

DEVELOPMENT of uranium extraction techniques over the past ten years has been spectacular. Rapid progress has been made by applying chemical, physical, and engineering fundamentals for the purpose of devising simpler processes, developing continuous procedures, reducing reagent consumption, improving final products, simplifying analytical methods, and treating more refractory ores and ores of lower grade. Since the source of many valuable metals in future will be of necessity from lower grade ores of a complex nature, and since hydrometallurgical processes are often the only means of treating such materials, these recently developed techniques will be of increasing importance. Leaching: A great deal has been published about the important role of ion exchange resins in purifying and concentrating leach solutions. Recent applications indicate that the resins will be very useful in simplifying leaching procedures of ores containing two or more valuable metals.1 The valuable metals may be differentially adsorbed by careful control of the oxidation-reduction potential of the pregnant liquors. For example, treatment of vanadium- uranium ores at present may involve salt roasting, water leaching, acid leaching, carbonate leaching, and intermediate fusions. Use of a single acid leach may now be possible, followed by a two-stage ion exchange technique, comprising initial adsorption of hexavalent uranium and rejection of tetravalent vanadium. The solution is then oxidized, producing pentavalent vanadium, which is later readily adsorbed and stripped into a separate eluate.

Jan 9, 1957

By I. Loomis, D. Rachmad, I. Duckworth

During the past two years the Underground Mine Ventilation Group at PT Freeport Indonesia has undertaken to upgrade their Hygiene Laboratory. This process has included upgrading equipment for dust sampling and gas monitoring, as well as procurement of an OCEC analyzer for Diesel Particulate Matter analysis. While the laboratory equipment represents one factor, these changes have also required re-evaluation of the sampling protocols and the burden of ventilation monitoring personnel. This paper provides a review of these experiences.

Jan 1, 2006

By J. J. Gresham

Homestake’s first links with Australia were established in 1934 but it wasn’t until 1961 that the company established a formal presence in the country. After involvement and success in iron ore and nickel, Homestake made a strategic investment in the Kalgoorlie gold operations in 1975 and now owns 50% of Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines, operators of Australia’s biggest gold mine. In 1998 Homestake acquired the major Australian gold producer Plutonic Resources, is now firmly established as Australia’s second largest gold producer and is actively seeking further opportunities for growth in the Austral-Asia region. Homestake’s success in Australia has been the result of important strategic alliances, timely investments, a long term commitment to the region and perseverance during periods of depressed commodity prices.

Jan 1, 2001

By Raul A. Deju

This paper shows how one can relate the chemical reactions between water and a silicate bed to the equations of flow. First the reaction mechanism is studied both theoretically and experimentally. Once the reaction mechanism is established, the equations of flow are solved and a solution (under physically reasonable side conditions) is obtained. Experiments to substantiate the solution are also presented.

Jan 1, 1969

By P. A. Tuzinski, L. J. Dahl, N. R. Adamson, S. E. Brink, R. L. Blake

The US Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines is developing a process to selectively extract manganese from oxide ores as part of its in situ mining research program. The Bureau is conducting site characterization studies of two manganiferous iron-formation deposits. These studies include: drill core, regional stratigraphic relationships from the existing geologic database, ore body geometry, geologic structure, hydrologic conditions, accessibility of ore minerals to leach fluid, surface subsidence potential and data collected from laboratory leaching experiments. This information is being used to evaluate the technical, environmental and economic feasibility of in situ mining of manganese for these two deposits. This paper will focus on the stratigraphy, mineralogy, ore textures, fractures, permeability and porosity as they relate to in situ mining.

Jan 1, 1994

Miners and explorers in New Zealand are expected to consult with stakeholders, keep out of core conservation areas, and operate a high standard of environmental management and rehabilitation. These requirements are not difficult to meet, but many of the industry's own actions have brought it to a low level of general public esteem in New Zealand. Reasons for this are discussed, drawing examples from the Maruia Society's experiences with the industry since the mid-1980s. The boundary between core conservation areas and other land is not easily drawn, and the Maruia Society has sought to work with the mining industry to promote legislation for net conservation benefit trade-offs. However this initiative was not successful. Today the industry, unlike most other major industry sectors in New Zealand, has no accord with the country's conservation movement.

Jan 1, 1997

By Colin Lawrence

The Port of New York and New Jersey is one of the most heavily used transportation arteries in the world, handling nearly 40 per-cent of the North Atlantic shipping trade and directly providing nearly 230,000 jobs to the local economy. In 2004, $100 billion worth of consumer goods moved through the port. To accommodate future cargo volumes in the port, which are expected to double over the next decade and possibly quadruple in 40 years, deeper shipping channels are needed to provide access for a new generation of cargo mega-ships with drafts exceeding 13.7-m (45-ft) when loaded. Current channels within the harbor range in depths up to 13.7-m (45-ft), thus preventing carriers from using these larger ships, or requiring significant reductions in cargo to achieve lesser drafts to operate safely within the harbor. As part of the Harbor Deepening Project, the Anchor-age Channel would be deepened to 15.2 m (50 ft) below mean low water (MLW), for a length of 5,790 m (19,000 ft). The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYCDEP) owns, operates and maintains two existing water siphons in the harbor. Due to their shallow depth, both existing siphons must be relocated before dredging of the Anchorage Channel can be completed. Tom Costanzo, manager of capital programs for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ), says that ?While the re-location of the existing siphons under the Anchorage Channel is vital to the success of the deepening program, it is also a story of cooperation among key agencies at different levels of government resulting in improvements that will benefit the people of this region greatly.?

Jun 1, 2010

By J. A. Younkins, J. A. Brooke

In 1931 the Philadelphia Company acquired by lease several coal mines in southern Greene County, Pennsylvania. These mines were known as the "Dora," "Seventh Pool" and "Rosedale" mines in the Sewickley seam, and the "Rosemary," "Seventh Pool" and "Warwick" mines in the Pittsburgh seam. All these mines are in the immediate vicinity of Greensboro, Pa., with considerable river frontage on both sides of that village. The mines in each seam are contiguous and to some extent the properties in the two seams lie one above the other. In 1938 the property known as the "Sandy Run mine," in the Sewickley seam, adjoining the Dora mine, was purchased from the Fredericktown Coal and Coke Co. Altogether, by purchase and lease, the company gained control of approximately 3400 acres of coal land in Greene County, from which it was estimated that some 20,000,000 tons of coal could be extracted. Geology of Warwick Properties Both seams of coal outcrop along or near the river on both sides of the town of Greensbgro. They lie on the eastern slope of the Lambert syncline, near the southern end of the axis, consequently the predominant dip of the seams is away from the river, so that development for river handling has the unavoidable disadvantage of adverse grades for haulage to the outside. Predominant grades away from the river at right angles to the "butt" cleat of the coal average about 2.25 per cent dipping in a westerly direction, but local dips occur, which are considerably greater. Predominant grades parallel to the river and at right angles to the "face" cleat of the coal average about one per cent dipping in a northerly direction. Both seams of coal lie in the Monongahela formation, the Pittsburgh bed being the bottom measure of the formation and the Sewickley bed lying about 90 it. above. Approximately midway between the two lies the Redstone coal bed, which is generally thin and of erratic occurrence and therefore of little commercial value. It is mined only locally where it attains sufficient thickness. Sewickley Bed The Sewickley bed is commonly called the "five-foot" or Mapletown" seam, because in Pennsylvania it reaches its greatest thickness and has been mined most extensively in the vicinity of the village of illapletown, approximately one mile west of Greensboro. In the early development of the Warwick properties, which occurred near the river, the seam had an average of 5 it. 2 in. in height. As development proceeded away from the river, however, the height gradually decreased until the average height of the present workings is about 4 ft. 6 in. Present development is encountering lower coal

Jan 1, 1947

By F. Ford, Z. Dai, A. W. Lee

ABSTRACT: As high-grade nickel sulphide ores are being depleted and processing laterite ores continues to pose challenges, the future of nickel extraction lies in low-grade ultramafic ores. Canada has large resources of low-grade ultramafic nickel sulphide ores in the Thompson Nickel Belt. Most of the deposits are high tonnage and open pittable, but have high MgO content. The main challenge in processing low-grade ultramafic ores is the presence of serpentine. Chrysotile, one of the three polymorphs of serpentine, is the most common form of asbestos. In addition, the high slurry viscosity associated with ultramafic ores makes grinding and flotation possible only at a very low solids percentage.

Jan 1, 2011

By J. B. Tyrrell

A short time ago I paid a visit to the alluvial gold fields on the tributaries of the Chaudiere River in Beauce County, Quebec, in company with A. 0. Dufresne, late manager of the Champs d'or Rigaud-Veaudreuil, and now assistant to the Superintendent of Mines of the Province of Quebec. As the conditions under which the gold occurs in this district are not very generally known, and present some interesting features, a brief description of these conditions, and a consideration of the causes which gave rise to them, may be of interest to other mining engineers. During the latter half of last century the country was visited by many mining engineers and geologists, and many references to it may be found in the reports of the Geological Survey of Canada between 1848 and 1911. The most important of these are by J. A. Dresser and J. Keele and the late Robert Chalmers. The Department of Colonization and Mines of the Province of Quebec also published a report with map on the district by J. Obalski. From the earliest times the valley of the Chaudiere River formed one of the main avenues of approach to the St. Lawrence in the vicinity of Quebec from the country to the south as far as the seaboard of the States of Maine and Massachusetts. The Indians had a well-known trail along the banks of the stream, and armed troops and foraging parties constantly moved backward and forward along it between Quebec and New England in those insecure times before the ceding of Canada to Great Britain. Even yet the natural advantages of this old military route are recognized, and the government of the Province of Quebec has now under construction along it a magnificent highway from Quebec to the International Boundary Line, which is to form part of a through highway from that city to Boston. The land along the valley is naturally well suited for agriculture, and about the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries farmers began to go back from the St. Lawrence, and to occupy the higher lands along the upper portions of the Chaudiere Valley. This settlement has gone on until now the country is peopled with a prosperous agricultural population.

Jan 1, 1915

By James F. Kemp

Jan 1, 1914

By A Price, D Okle, K Brooks

The operation of flotation plants has been improved over the years by use of fundamentally based design techniques, a better understanding of reagent chemistry, online metal analysis and the use of digital control systems. However, optimal operation of flotation banks is not consistently achieved using manual operation. The reason for this is that the system is a highly interacting one, with changes in air addition, cell interface level and reagent dosages all being available, without it necessarily being clear as to which change should be made for a particular situation.This situation is made more complex by the fact that the feed to a flotation bank can vary in flowrate, composition and density over a fairly short period of time. It is not possible for a human operator to reject these disturbances, given the extent of the operation that is typically being monitored.Model predictive control (MPC) is a control and optimisation technique, developed in the oil refining industry, that aims to manage just such interacting multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems. This technology makes use of linear dynamic models of the plant, that are experimentally derived. These models are then used in a receding horizon strategy to determine an optimal trajectory of the inputs to the system.MPC has been applied to four areas of the lead zinc flotation unit at Mount Isa mines. A total of 31 cells are being controlled by the system, which varies air to the cells, levels and reagent addition on a minute-by minute basis. The MPC controls concentrate and tail grades, reagent dosages, as well as recoveries to ranges set by the plant metallurgists.The development of the MPCs is discussed, together with the benefits realised. The key factors in insuring an ongoing return on investment are described.CITATION:Price, A, Okle, D and Brooks, K, 2018. Glencore Mount Isa lead zinc flotation circuit – experiences from the implementation of model predictive control, in Proceedings 14th AusIMM Mill Operators' Conference 2018, pp 101–110 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Aug 29, 2018

By McDonald E. Wrenn, Narayani P. Singh, Victor E. Archer, Ceno Saccomanno

Fourteen uranium miners' lungs from Colorado plateau were collected at autopsy and the concentrations of 238U, 234U and 230Th were determined by radiochemical procedures utilizing solvent extraction - alpha spectrometric techniques. The uranium and thorium isotopes are in near equilibrium with average concentrations of 238U, 234U and 230Th being 89.3, 95.2 and 91.1 pCi/kg respectively. The combined average radiation dose rate to lung from these three isotopes is about 24.2 mrad/year at death excluding the unmeasured contribution from the 226Ra and daughters. The average concentration of 230Th is about 65 times higher than the mean concentration of 230Th in lungs of non-miners dying at comparable ages from the same region.

Jan 1, 1981

By Sean Gallagher, Thomas G. Bobick, Diane M. Doyle-Coombs, Richard L. Unger

The U.S. Bureau of Mines has developed an in-house facility to evaluate selected effects of whole-body vibration (WBV) levels experienced by underground mobile equipment operators, Vertical vibration data were collected from a coal haulage vehicle via a uniaxial accelerometer attached to the machine frame under the operator&apos;s seat. Data were analyzed and processed so a computer-controlled platform could approximate the vibration signals. Eight men (35.5 yr 2 6.5 SD) participated in a pilot study to evaluate the effects of shock and kBV on heart rate (HR), blood pressure (BP), and subjective discomfort. Subjects were exposed to vibration for 30-min periods while seated in a typical seat (backrest angle at 90° or 130°) &apos;that was plain steel or modified with 2 in foam padding. Subjects repeated the same protocol on a separate day, without the vibration. Results indicated the vibration significantly increased the HR (Q< 0.01), systolic BP, mean BP, the number of times subjects reported discomfort, and overall subjective discomfort rating (pc 0.85). When seated in the steel seat, the overall discomfort rating (E< 0,081) ad the number of times discomfort was reported (p< 0.05) increased significantly. Seatback angle had no significant effect on any of the dependent measures.

By C Augustin, M Hahn, K Nienhaus

Operators of mining machinery like haul trucks or excavators have very limited information about the exact distance to other equipment as well as to the natural boundaries like berms, walls and structures such as crushers. The industry is seeking solutions to provide safety and positioning. The authors have developed a solution approach which is being used in several installations. This solution consists of three parts: first robust and compact two-dimensional (2D) radar scanners that provide range and angular information of the environment especially under difficult conditions like dust, rain, snow and fog; second an intelligent data processing framework flexible enough to adopt to different machines and operation modes like speed, inclination, visibility, tire friction, GPS position, orientation and acceleration; and third a high quality and easy to use interface giving highly condensed data to the operator, not blinding the operator at night and being sunlight readable. The truth of present proximity detection sensors is that they not only have a high false alarm rate but furthermore cover only a fraction of the possible scenarios. This makes them unsuitable for stand-alone collision avoidance systems. On the other side, mine dispatch systems only deliver database and GPS information, but no information regarding the real environment. The indurad company and its Australian partner CTS (http://www.cts.com.au) addressed these aspects by developing smart productivity enhancement driver assistance tools like lane and crusher dumping assistance.An innovative driver assistance tool developed in cooperation with the coal shearer manufacturer Eickhoff and the RWTH Aachen University has been awarded with the annual research award of its customer RAG, being the largest German hard coal producer, as well as with the bauma Innovation Award in 2010.

Sep 26, 2011

By M. S. Vernon, J. J. Kellar, W. M. Cross, R. M. Winter, F. J. Johnson, A. G. Pommer

Three substrates (MgO crystal, CaF2 crystal and Mg plate) were used to construct thin layers of Mg(OH)2. Various routes were used to modify these substrates, including surface hydration and sol-gel coating. In each case, it was found (by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy) that thin layers of Mg(OH)2 could be produced. In the case of hydrated layers, the surface morphology of the Mg(OH)2 resembles the bulk platelet shape of precipitated Mg(OH)2.

Jan 1, 2000