Search Documents

By Sidney Katell

This report covers the period January 1964 through December 1964; it is a continuation of the series that began with the publication of Information Circular 7516 in October 1949. Also, it is the sixth in a series of reports prepared under a cooperative agreement between the Bureau of Mines and the American Association of Cost Engineers. The agreement provides for the publication of an annual cost bibliography with the work load involved in the preparation shared equally. The abstracted articles, concerned with all facers of cost engineering in the field of chemical and petroleum. plants and related subjects, are from the following sources: 1. American Association of Cost Engineers Bulletin. 2. Bureau of Mines Information Circulars. 3. Bureau of Mines Reports of Investigations. 4. Chemical Engineering. 5. Chemical Engineering Progress,

Jan 1, 1965

By John E. Rourke, O&apos

This report documents the process of site selection, instrument installation, data acquisition, and preliminary data analysis followed to characterize the physical response of overlying strata to longwall mining. A system of surface, subsurface and mine level instrumentation was installed at the Allen Mine in Weston, Colorado where the overburden varied in thickness from 600 to 900 feet. Survey monuments, automatic-recording strain-meters, multi-point rod extensometers, inclinometer-extensometers, stressmeters and tape extensometer convergence stations were installed to monitor displacements and stress changes. A preliminary analysis of the data acquired up until project termination has shown the system to be operative and strata response to be similar to that reported for other subsidence monitoring case histories. Recommendations for continued monitoring of the instrumentation systems are presented.

Jan 1, 1982

By R. N. Johnson

This report is a summary of the work performed for the Bureau of Mines to evaluate the feasibility and desirability of a movable in-pit crusher combined with conveyors to substantially reduce or eliminate truck or train haulage in large open-pit non-fuel mineral mines. The report includes an introduction and summary of previous work, an analysis of movable crusher system components, a description of the selected system, a review of possible movable crusher system applications, and finally requirements for future work to bring about the general availability of such systems. It was clear from the program that there is a real need for movable in-pit crushers.

Jan 1, 1982

By Richard D. Miller

This publication contains routine analyses and related source data for 434 gas samples from 16 States. These samples were collected during calendar year 1961 as part of the continuous survey for the occurrence of helium in natural gas conducted by the Helium Activity of the Bureau of Mines. The analyses herein were made by mass spectrometer and Frost helium apparatus. The most important helium resource discovery made during 1961 was the Table Mesa field in San Juan County, N. Mex. This field, Which has an estimated recoverable helium reserve of 850 million cubic feet, is now supplying gas containing approximately 5.4 percent helium to the Bureau of Mines Navajo Helium Plant at Shiprock, N. Mex.

Jan 1, 1964

By Lars G. Olavson

A prototype roof bolt which can be remotely placed by pumping has been developed by the Bureau of Mines. It is known as the "Pumpable Bolt". With the objective of field testing the effectiveness of the pumpable Bolt roof support system a mining machine was developed capable of installing Pumpable Bolts in the normal production cycle of a typical underground coal mine. The machine was built and the pumpable Bolt concept tested and evaluated as a total system in shop and mine tests. The machine was operated in the mining cycle of two mines and pumpable Bolts were installed at both mine sites.

Jan 1, 1976

By Sidney Katell

This report covers the period January 1964 through December 1964; it is a continuation of the series that began with the publication of Information Circular 7516 in October 1949. Also, it is the sixth in a series of reports prepared under a cooperative agreement between the Bureau of Mines and the American Association of Cost Engineers. The agreement provides for the publication of an annual cost bibliography with the work load involved in the preparation shared equally. The abstracted articles, concerned with all facers of cost engineering in the field of chemical and petroleum. plants and related subjects, are from the following sources:

Jan 1, 1965

By Hon-Yim Ko

The properties of coal from the Pittsburgh seam, procured from the Bruceton and Federal No. 2 Mines were found to be similar. Strength and stiffness properties of Beehive Mine coal were determined and the material found to be isotropic. Mechanical, index and geologic properties of roof and floor coal measure rocks from Beehive mines were measured and correlated. Analytic formulations are given for coal creep under uniaxial loading, while triaxial creep is being investigated. Results of testing of coal model structures are compared with predictions from using several material models.

Jan 1, 1976

By Roger A. Dworak

This report describes in detail the work done on the development of the Time Domain Reflectometry Microcomputer (TDRM). Modifications to the FMC-Model 302A Cable Fault Locator is described in Appendix D. The TDRM unit uses an 8080 microcomputer to accurately locate major faults in low capacitance cables to within ± 1 foot when properly calibrated. Major faults in high capacitance cables are usually located within ± 5 feet. The upper limits of fault detection are <1 kilohm shunt fault and >7 ohm series fault. In practice fault detection limits are reduced to <300 ohms shunt fault and >30 ohms series fault because of discontinuities caused by cable repair.

Jan 1, 1977

By R. E. Head

This paper embodies the data obtained by a detailed statistical, microscopic analysis of the composite mill feed concentrate, and tailing, from the Magne and Arthur mills of the Utah Conger Co. for 1 month in 1929. It is one of a series of papers by the same authors dealing with the mineralogical characteristics of the ore and concentration products from various well-known plants. The work was done in the cooperative microscopic service laboratory at Salt Lake and represents the results of cooperation between the United States Bureau of Mines, the Utah Copper Co., and the University of Utah.

Jan 1, 1935

By Richard Adsero

The Australian Bureau of Statistics and the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics publish data for a range of industries, allowing a measure of performance to be quantified, called multifactor productivity (MFP), and allowing performance between industries to be compared on a consistent basis. At the time of writing, the last released data was for 2011-2012. For Australia, the plot of mining industry productivity and a basket of the 12 most significant industries in Australia?s economy (including mining) are shown in Fig. 1. For the United States, mining and petroleum and all manufacturing productivity are also displayed in Fig. 1. The trends are as follows: ? The MFP in the Australian mining sector rose 36 percent from 1986-1987 to 2000-2001. There was a 47-percent decline in MFP from 2000-2001 to 2011-2012 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2011). ? The MFP in the United States mining sector rose 17 percent from 1986-1987 to 2004-2005. There was a 7-percent decline in MFP 2004-2005 to 2010-2011, (Topp et al., 2008).

Sep 1, 2013

By Mark L. Chatman

This report presents an economic mineral assessment and Inventory of mines and prospects In the approximately 176,000-acre Patagonia Mountains-Canelo Hills Unit of Coronado National Forest. Deposits or areas most likely to experience future development are characterized in terms of their economics, based on data acquired by the author from a variety of sources, and supplemented by USBM field data collected by other workers in 1990 and 1991. Numerous mine maps, rock-chip sample assays, and detailed descriptions of mine and prospect sites are in this report and appendixes. Heavy but sporadic mining, mainly between the 1850&apos;s and 1950&apos;s was nearly all confined to the Patagonia Mountains. High-grade sulfide veins, replacements, and skarn deposits accounted for most of the production, which included large quantities of zinc, lead, copper, and silver, and considerable quantities of gold. Small Quantities of molybdenum, manganese, tungsten, and placer gold have been mined. Most of the traditionally mined metalliferous sites will not see future activity due to the low tonnages present and removal of most high-grade rock. Possible future development areas include copper porphyries and breccia pipes; most are too deeply buried for current development. Localities where similar deposits may be concealed are identified.

Jan 1, 1994

By Ivor Hawkes

The purpose of the development described in this report and as stated in the contract work statement is to "design, develop, fabricate, test and demonstrate, and deliver to the government permissible low cost cylindrical stress gauges and associated components capable of measuring change of stress as a function of time in underground coal mines. The cylindrical stress gauges shall be suitable for installation in bore holes". The technique adopted for measuring rock stress changes is to preload a steel cylinder diametrically across the sides of a 1-1/2 in diameter bore hole and detect deformation of the cylinder from stress changes in the rock, by means of a vibrating wire transducer. By calibration, changes in the period (time for one wire oscillation at the natural frequency) of a high tensioned wire stretched diametrically across the cylinder in the direction of load application are related to stress changes in the rock. To completely evaluate the stress field change in the plane of the bore hole, three gauges set at an angle to each other are required.

Jan 1, 1973

By Millard M. Gilkey

This Bureau of Mines report presents results of a detailed study of water usage in the Wyoming mineral industry along with projections for the future In 1964, the mineral industries of Wyoming used 20 billion gallons of new water, nearly all self-supplied, and reused 72 billion gallons, a total usage of 92 billion gallons. Consumption amounted to 2.8 billion gallons. About one-half of the 20 billion gallons of new water was obtained from [srface] sources and the rest from ground water. Reported costs, covering power and maintenance, for the self-supplied new water at mineral industry operations ranged from less than 1 cent to 20 cents per thousand gallons and aver-aged 8 cents. At one mineral-related operation, water was hauled by truck to supplement a well supply. The cost was $2.00 per thousand gallons delivered. However, the supplemental requirement was only 10 gpm. Cost figures for the recirculation of water, covering power and maintenance, averaged 2 cents. In terms of water usage, the value of product for the entire industry was $25 per thousand gallons of new water intake and about $180 per thousand gallons consumed. The study revealed that Wyoming has a water deficiency but that the shortage is less severe than in the arid Southwest. Projection of the water needs of the Wyoming mineral industries indicates that the demand for new water will increase from the 20 billion gallons used in 1964 to 25 billion gallons in 1980, a 25-percent increase. The projected new-water requirement for the year 2000 is 40 billion gallons, a 100-percent increase compared with the 1964 figure.

Jan 1, 1967

The mine surveillance and communication system hereafter described provides continuous local and remote monitoring of several parameters critical to normal mine operation at each of ten underground sites in the Bruceton Research Mine. The techniques employed are well proven and have been care-fully chosen to provide the best solution to the technical problems involved while giving special attention to economic considerations.

Jan 1, 1973

By L. E. Cardwell

This publication contains routine analyses and related source data for 377 natural gas samples from 19 States and two foreign countries. Of this total, 373 samples were collected during calendar year 1970. The remaining four samples were collected during previous years, but releases granting per-mission to publish the analyses were not received until 1970. All samples were collected as part of a continuous survey of the free world for occurrences of helium in natural gas. This survey has been conducted in the United States by the Bureau of Mines since 1917. In late 1965, the survey was expanded to include foreign gasfields. The analyses published herein were made by mass spectrometer and a special helium analysis apparatus, which are described in Bureau of Mines Bulletins 4863 and 576.4 Twelve previous publications have presented the results of 9,050 gas analyses prior to 1970. The first three, Bulletins 486,6 576,8 and 617,7 contain analyses and related source data on 5,218 gas samples collected from

Jan 1, 1971

By Jr. Denton

This U.S. Bureau of Mines report presents the documentation for HEAPREC, a methodology for calculating reclamation performance bonds for cyanide heap leach operations. HEAPREC is a template developed for use with Lotus 1-2-33 release 2.01 or newer software. The report is presented in step-by-step "user&apos;s manual" format. Appendices contain detailed background and reference material on performance bonding, cyanide detoxification regulation, cyanide detoxification methods, general mine reclamation procedures, and an example bond calculation.

Jan 1, 1992

During the period 1979 thru 1982, Multi Mineral Corporation conducted a mining research program at the United States Department of the Interior&apos;s Bureau of Mines Oil Shale Mining Environmental Research Facility in the Central Piceance Creek Basin, Rio Blanco County, Colorado. The program consisted of mining, environmental and geotechnical research data and, the results are described in this report.

Jan 1, 1983

By Frank C. Morris

This report presents the results of a Bureau of Mines study to identify clays found in several petroleum-reservoir rocks in the Tejon-Grapevine area, Kern County, Calif., and to determine the effect of water sensitivity of the clays on the permeability of the reservoir rocks. The clays in the porous rocks were examined in detail, and the clay-mineral types were identified by differential thermal analysis, X-ray diffraction, and optical and dye-staining methods. Fresh-water damage to the permeability of the oil-reservoir rocks was indicated by a study of 125 core samples from productive formations. The study indicated that, although clays were generally less than 5 percent of the reservoir rocks, they swelled in water, particularly fresh water, and nearly blocked the flow channels through which oil flows to the well, effectively reducing the permeability of the formations. The average permeability of rock decreased from 1,600 millidarcys in air to 620 millidarcys in salt water and 120 millidarcys in fresh water. The dominant clays in the oil-bearing sandstones were members of the montmorillonite group. They were associated with smaller quantities of clays found to be in the mica or illite group. None of the cores appeared to contain clays of the kaolinite group. In the lower section of the J.V. sandstone indications of what appeared to be the mineral sepiolite were noted.

Jan 1, 1959

By David A. Benjamin

From 1986 to 1989, at the request of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Bureau of Mines studied the 59,600-acre Mexican Mountain Wilderness Study Area (UT-060-054) in order to evaluate its identified mineral resources. The study area is located in Emery County, UT, about 24 miles east of Castle Dale, UT. A review of the geologic and mining literature, and a field examination identified two uranium prospects in the Wilderness Study Area, and three copper prospects nearby. One-hundred ninety-five rock samples were taken.

Jan 1, 1989

By Robert E. Wallhagen

This report describes the results of a four year investigation into improved face ventilation systems for underground coal mines. The objective was to experimentally determine configurations for a diffuser fan system and a water spray (spray fan) system which will provide a maximum reduction in face methane concentrations without causing an increase in methane concentrations at the operator&apos;s position. The experimental evaluation was performed in full scale mock-up mine entries, simulating continuous mining operations in both a six foot and four foot coal seam complete with normal ventilation, water sprays, and methane emission. A limited study was also performed to assess the effect of scrubber discharge location on methane concentrations in the face area. The results indicated that diffuser fan and spray fan systems that were designed to augment the natural airflow pattern in the entry could provide a factor of 3 to 5 reduction in average methane concentration at the face, compared to a mining machine with just conventional water sprays. The properly designed diffuser and spray fan systems also significantly reduced the total methane present in the entry. A properly designed dust scrubber discharge can reduce face methane levels by a factor of two.

Jan 1, 1977