2erior2019 Mining ~ Bhtannica Online Encyclopedia Mining Mining, process of extracting useful minerals from the surface of the Earth, including the seas. A mineral, with afew | TABLE OF CONTENTS exceptions, is an inorganic substance occurring in nature that has a definite chemical composition and distinctive physical | Mtoduction properties or molecular structure. (One organic substance, History coal, is often discussed as a mineral as well) Ore is a Prospecting and exploration metalliferous mineral, or an aggregate of metalliferous Surface mining minerals and gangue (associated rock of no economic value), ° scone Underground mining that can be mined at a profit. Mineral deposit designates a i F Placer mining natural occurrence of a useful mineral, while ore deposit denotes a mineral deposit of sufficient extent and Marine mi 9 concentration to invite exploitation. Solution mining When evaluating mineral deposits, itis extremely important to keep profit in mind. The total quantity of mineral in a given deposit is referred to as the mineral inventory, but only that quantity which can be mined at a profit is termed the ore reserve. As the selling price of the mineral rises or the extraction costs fall, the proportion of the mineral inventory classified as ore increases. Obviously, the opposite is also true, and a mine may cease production because (}) the mineral is exhausted or (2) the prices have dropped or costs risen so much that what was once ore is now only mineral. ‘Typical development workings of an Underground mine, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc History William Andrew Hustrulid Archaeological discoveries indicate that mining was conducted in prehistoric times. Apparently, the first mineral used was flint, which, because of its conchoidal fracturing pattern, could be broken into sharp-edged pieces that were useful as scrapers, knives, and arrowheads. During the Neolithic Period, or New Stone Age (about 8000-2000 ace), shafts up to 100 metres (330 feet) deep were sunk in soft chalk deposits in France and Britain in order to extract the flint pebbles found there. Other minerals, such as red ochre and the copper mineral malachite, were used as pigments. The oldest known underground mine in the world was sunk more than 40,000 years ago at Bomvu Ridge in the Ngwenya mountains, Swaziland, to mine ochre used in burial ceremonies and as body colouring. hitpshwn-bctarnica comipinarticey384099 suse2artor2019 Mining ~Brtannca Online Encyclopedia Gold was one of the first metals utilized, being mined from streambeds of sand and gravel where it occurred as a pure metal because of its chemical stability. Although chemically less stable, copper occurs in native form and was probably the second metal discovered and used. Silver was also found in a pure state and at one time was valued more highly than gold. According to historians, the Egyptians were mining copper on the Sinai Peninsula as long ago as 3000 act, although some bronze (copper alloyed with tin) is dated as early as 3700 BCE. Iron is dated as early as 2800 ace; Egyptian records of iron ore smelting date from 1300 CE. Found in the ancient ruins of Troy, lead was produced as early as 2500 ace. One of the earliest evidences of building with quarried stone was the construction (2600 ecr) of the great pyramids in Egypt, the largest of which (Khufu) is 236 metres (775 feet) along the base sides and contains approximately 23 million blocks of two types of limestone and red granite. The limestone is believed to have been quarried from across the Nile. Blocks weighing as much as 15,000 kg (33,000 pounds) were transported long distances and elevated into place, and they show precise cutting that resulted in fine ‘ing masonry. One of the most complete early treatments of mining methods in Europe is by the German scholar Georgius Agricola in his De re metallica (1556). He describes detailed methods of driving shafts and tunnels. Soft ore and rock were laboriously mined with a pick and harder ore with a pick and hammer, wedges, or heat (fire setting). Fire setting involved piling a heap of logs at the rock face and burning them. The heat weakened or fractured the rock because of thermal expansion or other processes, depending on the type of rock and ore. Crude ventilation and pumping systems were utilized where necessary. Hoisting up shafts and inclines was done with a windlass; haulage was in "trucks" and wheelbarrows. Timber support systems were employed in tunnels. Great progress in mining was made when the secret of black powder reached the West, probably from China in the late Middle Ages. This was replaced as an explosive in the mid- 19th century with dynamite, and since 1956 both ammonium nitrate fuel-blasting agents and slurries (mixtures of water, fuels, and oxidizers) have come into extensive use. A steel drill with a wedge point and a hammer were first used to drill holes for placement of explosives, which were then loaded into the holes and detonated to break the rock. Experience showed that proper placement of holes and firing order are important in obtaining maximum rock breakage in mines The invention of mechanical drills powered by compressed air (pneumatic hammers) increased markedly the capability to mine hard rock, decreasing the cost and time for excavation severalfold. It is reported that the Englishman Richard Trevithick invented a rotary steam-driven drill in 1813. Mechanical piston drills utilizing attached bits on drill rods and hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 222artor2019 Mining ~ Britannica Ontine Encyclopedia moving up and down like a piston in a cylinder date from 1843. In Germany in 1853 a drill that resembled modem air drills was invented. Piston drills were superseded by hammer drills run by compressed air, and their performance improved with better design and the availability of quality steel Developments in drilling were accompanied by improvements in loading methods, from handloading with shovels to various types of mechanical loaders. Haulage likewise evolved from human and animal portage to mine cars drawn by electric locomotives and conveyers and to rubber-tired vehicles of large capacity. Similar developments took place in surface mining, increasing the volume of production and lowering the cost of metallic and nonmetallic products drastically. Large stripping machines with excavating wheels used in surface coal mining are employed in other types of open-pit mines. Water inflow was a very important problem in underground mining until James Watt invented the steam engine in the 18th century, After that, steam-driven pumps could be used to remove water from the deep mines of the day. Early lighting systems were of the open-flame type, consisting of candles or oil-wick lamps. In the latter type, coal oil, whale oil, or kerosene was burned. Beginning in the 1890s, flammable acetylene gas was generated by adding water to calcium carbide in the base of a lamp and then released through a jet in the centre of a bright metal reflector. A flint sparker made these so-called carbide lamps easy to light. In the 1930s battery-powered cap lamps began entering mines, and since then various improvements have been made in light intensity, battery life, and weight. Although a great deal of mythic lore and romance has accumulated around miners and mining, in modern mining it is machines that provide the strength and trained miners who provide the brains needed to prevail in this highly competitive industry. Technology has developed to the point where gold is now mined underground at depths of 4,000 metres {about 13,100 feet), and the deepest surface mines have been excavated to more than 700 metres (about 2,300 feet) George B. Clark William Andrew Hustrulid Prospecting and exploration Various techniques are used in the search for a mineral deposit, an activity called prospecting. Once a discovery has been made, the property containing a deposit, called the prospect, is explored to determine some of the more important characteristics of the deposit. Among these are its size, shape, orientation in space, and location with respect to the surface, as well as the mineral quality and quality distribution and the quantities of these different qualities. hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 aise2a/1012019 Mining ~ Britannia Onine Encyclopedia Prospecting In searching for valuable minerals, the traditional prospector relied primarily on the direct observation of mineralization in outcrops, sediments, and soil. Although direct observation is still widely practiced, the modern prospector also employs a combination of geologic, geophysical, and geochemical tools to provide indirect indications for reducing the search radius. The object of modern techniques is to find anomalies—ie,, differences between what is observed at a particular location and what would normally be expected. Aerial and satellite imagery provides one means of quickly examining large land areas and of identifying mineralizations that may be indicated by differences in geologic structure or in rock, soil, and vegetation type. In geophysical prospecting gravity, magnetic, electrical, seismic, and radiometric methods are used to distinguish such rock properties as density, magnetic susceptibility, natural remanent magnetization, electrical conductivity, dielectric permittivity, magnetic permeability, seismic wave velocity, and radioactive decay. In geochemical prospecting the search for anomalies is based on the systema’ elements or chemically influenced properties. Samples of soils, lake sediments and water, glacial deposits, rocks, vegetation and humus, animal tissues, microorganisms, gases and air, measurement of trace and particulates are collected and tested so that unusual concentrations can be identified. Exploration On the basis of such studies, a number of prospects are identified. The most promising of these becomes the focus of a field exploration program. Several exploration techniques are used, depending on the type of deposit and its proximity to the surface. When the top of a deposit intersects the surface, or outcrops, shallow trenches may be excavated with a bulldozer or backhoe. Trenching provides accurate near-surface data and the possibility of collecting samples of large volume for testing, The technique is obviously limited to the cutting depth of the equipment involved. Sometimes special drifts are driven in order to explore a deposit, but this is a very expensive and time-consuming practice. In general, the purpose of driving such drifts is to provide drilling sites from which a large volume can be explored and a three-dimensional model of the potential ore body developed. Old shafts and drifts often provide a valuable and convenient way of sampling existing reserves and exploring extensions. The most widely used exploration technique is the drilling of probe holes. In this practice a drill with a diamond-tipped bit cuts a narrow kerf of rock, extracting intact a cylindrical core of rock in the centre (see core sampling). These core holes may be hundreds or even thousands of metres in length; the most common diameter is about 50 mm (2 inches). The cores are placed in special core boxes in the order in which they were removed from the hole. Geologists then carefully describe, or log, the core in order to determine the location and hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 a22artor2019 Mining ~Brtannca Online Encyclopedia kinds of rock and mineral present; the different structural features such as joints, faults, and bedding planes; and the strength of the rock material. Cores are often split lengthwise, with one half being sent to a laboratory so that the grade, or content, of mineralization can be determined. Delineation Normally, core holes are drilled in a more or less regular pattern, and the locations of the holes are plotted on plan maps. In order to visualize how the deposit appears at depth, holes are also plotted along a series of vertical planes called sections. The geologist then examines each section and, on the basis of information collected from the maps and core logs as well as his knowledge of the structures present, fills in the regions lying between holes and between planes. This method of constructing an ore body is widely used where the boundaries between ore and waste are sharp and where medium to small deposits are mined by underground techniques, but, in the case of large deposits mined by open-pit methods, it has largely been replaced by the use of block models. These will be discussed in more detail below (see Surface mining) Mineral deposits have different shapes, depending on how they were deposited, The most common shape is tabular, with the mineral deposit lying as a filling between more or less parallel layers of rock. The orientation of such an ore body can be described by its dip (the angle that it makes with the horizontal) and its strike (the position it takes with respect to the four points of the compass). Rock lying above the ore body is called the hanging wall, and rock located below the ore body is called the footwall. The concentration of a valuable mineral within an ore is often referred to as its grade. Grade may exhibit considerable variation throughout a deposit. Moreover, there is a certain grade below which it is not profitable to mine a mineral even though it is still present in the ore. This is called the mine cutoff grade. And, if the material has already been mined, there is a certain grade below which it is not profitable to process it; this is the mill cutoff grade. The grade at which the costs associated with mining and mineral processing just equal the revenues is called the break-even grade. Material having a higher grade than this would be considered ore, and anything below that would be waste. Therefore, in determining which portion of a mineral can be considered an exploitable ore reserve, it is necessary to estimate extraction costs and the price that can be expected for the commodity. Extraction costs depend on the type of mining system selected, the level of mechanization, mine life, and many other factors. This makes selecting the best system for a given deposit a complex process. For example, deposits outcropping at the surface may initially be mined as open pits, but at a certain depth the decision to switch to underground hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 51822artor2019 Mining ~ Britannica Ontine Encyclopedia mining may have to be made. Even then, the overall cost per ton of ore delivered to the processing plant would be significantly higher than from the open pit; to pay for these extra costs, the grade of the underground ore would have to be correspondingly higher. Surface mining It has been estimated that more than two-thirds of the world's yearly mineral production is extracted by surface mining. There are several types of surface mining, but the three most common are open-pit mining, strip mining, and quarrying. These differ from one another in the mine geornetries created, the techniques used, and the minerals produced. Open-pit mining often (but not always) results in a large hole, or pit, being formed in the process of extracting a mineral. It can also result in a portion of a hilltop being removed. In strip mining a long, narrow strip of mineral is uncovered by a dragline, large shovel, or similar type of excavator. After the mineral has been removed, an adjacent strip is uncovered and its overlying waste material deposited in the excavation of the first strip. Since strip mining is primarily applied to thin, flat deposits of coal, it is not discussed here (see coal mining). There are two types of quarrying, There is the extraction of ornamental stone blocks of specific colour, size, shape, and quality—an operation requiring special and expensive production procedures. In addition, the term quarrying has been applied to the recovery of sand, gravel, and crushed stone for the production of road base, cement, concrete, and macadam. However, since the practices followed in these operations are similar to those of open-pit mines, the discussion of quarrying here is limited to the excavation of ornamental stone. Open-pit mining Pi geometry Deposits mined by open-pit techniques are generally divided into horizontal layers called benches. The thickness (that is, the height) of the benches depends on the type of deposit, the mineral being mined, and the equipment being used; for large mines it is on the order of 12 to 15 metres (about 40 to 50 feet). Mining is generally conducted on a number of benches at any one time. The top of each bench is equivalent to a working level, and access to different levels is gained through a system of ramps. The width of a ramp depends on the equipment being used, but typical widths ere from 20 to 40 metres (65 to 130 feet). Mining ona new level is begun by extending a ramp downward. This initial, or drop, cut is then progressively widened to form the new pit bottom. hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 622artor2019 Mining ~Brtannca Online Encyclopedia The walls of a pit have a certain slope determined by the strength of the rock mass and other factors, The stability of these walls, and even of individual benches and groups of benches, is, very important—particularly as the pit gets deeper. Increasing the pit slope angle by only a few degrees can decrease stripping costs tremendously or increase revenues through increased ore recovery, but it can also result in a number of slope failures on a small or large scale. Millions of tons of material may be involved in such slides. For this reason, mines have ongoing slope-stability programs involving the collection and analysis of structural data, hydrogeologic information, and operational practices (blasting, in particular), so that the best slope designs may be achieved. It is not unusual for five or more different slope angles to be involved in one large pit. Asa pit is deepened, more and more waste rock must be stripped away in order to uncover the ore. Eventually there comes a point where the revenue from the exposed ore is less than the costs involved in its recovery. Mining then ceases. The ratio of the amount of waste rock stripped to ore removed is called the overall stripping ratio. The break-even stripping ratio is a function of ore value and the costs involved. Ore reserves The first step in the evaluation and design of an open-pit mine is the determination of reserves. As was explained above, information regarding the deposit is collected through the drilling of probe holes. The locations of the holes are plotted on a plan map, and sections taken through the holes give a good idea of the ore body's vertical extent. From these vertical sections the tentative locations of the benches are selected. However, since the deposit is to be mined in horizontal benches, it is also convenient to calculate the ore reserve in horizontal sections, with the thickness of each section equal to the height of a bench. These horizontal sections are divided along coordinate lines into a series of blocks, with the plan dimensions {ie, the length and width) of each block generally being one to three times the bench height. After the grade of each block has been determined, the blocks are assembled into a block model representation of the ore body. (This model must be significantly larger than the actual ore reserve in order to include the eventual pit that must be dug to expose the ore body.) Economic factors such as costs and expected revenues, which vary with grade and block location, are then applied; the result is an economic block model. Some of the blocks in the model will eventually fall within the pit, but others will lie outside. Of the several techniques for determining which of the blocks should be included in the final pit, the most common is the floating cone technique. In two dimensions the removal of a given ore block would require the removal of a set of overlying blocks as well. All of these would be included in an inverted triangle with its sides corresponding to the slope angle, its base lying on the surface, hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 m22artor2019 Mining ~Brtannca Online Encyclopedia and its apex located in the ore block under consideration. In an actual three-dimensional case, this triangle would be a cone. The economic value of the ore block at the apex of the cone would be compared with the total cost of removing all of the blocks included in the cone. If the net value proved positive, then the cone would be mined. This technique would be applied to all of the blocks making up the block model, and at the end of this process a final pit outline would result. Unit operations The largest open-pit operations can move almost one million tons of material (both ore and waste) per day. In smaller operations the rate may be only a couple of thousand tons per day. In most of these mines there are four unit operations: drilling, blasting, loading, and hauling In large mines rotary drills are used to drill holes with diameters ranging from 180 to 450 mm {about 6 to 18 inches). The drill bit, made up of three cones containing either steel or tungsten carbide cutting edges, is rotated against the hole bottom under a heavy load, breaking the rock by compression and shear. An air compressor on the drilling machine forces air down the centre of the drill string so that the cuttings are removed. In smaller pits holes are often drilled by pneumatic or hydraulic percussion machines. These rigs may be truck- or crawler-mounted. Hole diameters are often in the range of 75 to 120 mm (about 3 to 5 inches). Holes are drilled in special patterns so that blasting produces the types of fragmentation desired for the subsequent loading, hauling, and crushing operations. These patterns are defined by the burden (the shortest distance between the hole and the exposed bench face) and the spacing between the holes. Generally, the burden is 25 to 35 times the diameter of the blasthole, depending on the type of rock and explosive being used, and the spacing is equal to the burden. There are a number of explosives used, but most are based on a slurry of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil (ANFO), which is transported by tanker truck and pumped into the holes. When filled with ANFO, a blasthole 400 mm (about 16 inches) in diameter and 7.5 metres (about 25 feet) deep can develop about one billion horsepower. It is incumbent upon those involved in the drilling and blasting to turn this power into useful fragmentation work. To achieve the proper fragmentation, a series of blastholes is generally shot in a carefully controlled sequence, The object of blasting is to fragment the rock and then displace it into a pile that will facilitate its loading and transport. In large open pits the main implements for loading are electric, diesel-electric, or hydraulic shovels, while electric or mechanical-drive trucks are hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 ane2artor2019 Mining ~Brtannca Online Encyclopedia used for transport. The size of the shovels is generally specified by dipper, or bucket, size; those in common use have dipper capacities ranging from 15 to 50 cubic metres (20 to 65 cubic yards). This means that 30 to 100 tons can be dug in a single “bite” of the shovel. The size of the trucks is matched to that of the shovel, a common rule of thumb being that the truck should be filled in four to six swings of the shovel. Thus, for a shovel of 1I5-cubic-metre capacity, a truck having a capacity of 120 to 180 tons (four to six swings) should be assigned. The largest trucks have capacities of more than 350 tons (about 12 swings) and are equipped with engines that produce more than 3,500 horsepower; their tire diameters are often more than 3 metres (10 feet). Because of their high mobility, very large-capacity wheel loaders {front-end loaders) are also used in open-pit mines. As pits became deeper—the deepest pits in the world exceed 800 metres (2,600 feet}— alternate modes of transporting broken ore and waste rock became more common. One of these is the belt conveyor, but in general this method requires in-pit crushing of the run-of- mine material prior to transport. For most materials a maximum angle of 18° is possible. To transport directly up the sides of pit walls, special conveying techniques are under development. After loading, waste rock is transported to special dumps, while ore is generally hauled to a mineral-processing plant for further treatment. (In some cases ore is of sufficiently high quality for direct shipment without intermediate processing.) In some operations separate dumps are created for the various grades of sub-ore material, and these dumps may be re- mined later and processed in the mill. Certain dumps can be treated by various solutions to extract the contained metals (a process known as heap leaching or dump leaching). Quarrying Although seldom used to form entire structures, stone is greatly valued for its aesthetic appeal, durability, and ease of maintenance. The most popular types include granite, limestone, sandstone, marble, slate, gneiss, and serpentine. All natural stone used for structural support, curtain walls, veneer, floor tile, roofing, or strictly ornamental purposes is called building stone, and building stone that has been cut and finished for predetermined uses in building construction and monuments is known as dimension stone. The characteristics required of good dimension stone are uniformity of texture and colour, freedom from flaws, suitability for polishing and carving, and resistance to weathering. This section describes the quarrying of dimension stone. geometry hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 ena2artor2019 Mining ~Brtannca Online Encyclopedia Although quarrying is also done underground, using room-and-pillar techniques, most quarries involve the removal of blocks from hillsides or from an open-pit type of geometry. The first step in developing such a quarry is the removal of the vegetative cover of trees and underbrush. Next, the overburden of topsoil and subsoil is removed and stockpiled for future reclamation. The rock is quarried in a series of benches or slices corresponding to the thickness of the desired blocks. This is often on the order of 4.5 to 6 metres (about 15 to 20 feet), but, since it is actual quarry practice to take advantage of any natural horizontal seams, block thickness may vary. The quarrying process consists of separating large blocks, sometimes called loafs, from the surrounding rock. These blocks may be 6 metres high by 6 metres deep and 12 to 18 metres (about 40 to 60 feet) long, and they may weigh in the range of 1,200 to 2,000 tons. (Such large blocks are subsequently divided into mill blocks weighing 15 to 70 tons) The removal of blocks from the quarry has traditionally been done by one or more fixed derricks. As a result, the plan area of a quarry has been determined not only by the geometry of the deposit and the amount of overburden but also by the reach of the derrick boom. However, derricks are gradually being replaced by highly mobile front-end loaders of sufficient capacity to move, lift, and carry 30-ton mill blocks, and the layout, design, and operating procedures of quarries are being modified accordingly. There is a very high waste factor in the quarrying of dimension stone. For some quarries the amount of usable stone is only 15 to 20 percent of that quarried, For this reason an important aspect of quarry planning is the location of the waste or “grout” pile. Unit operations There are a number of techniques for separating a mass of stone from the parent mass. For many years the primary technique was the wire saw, which consists of a single-, double, or triple-stranded helicoidal steel wire about 6 mm (0.2 inch) in diameter into which sand, aluminum oxide, silicon carbide, or other abrasive is fed in a water slurry. As the wire is pulled across the surface, a groove or channel is worn in the stone. Although the wire does not do the cutting itself (this is done by the abrasive), it does wear in the process so that the width of the cut continuously decreases. If the wire breaks prior to the completion of a cut, there will be great difficulty in beginning again; hence, the wire must be sufficiently long to complete the cut. In granite quarrying, a rule of thumb is that about 27 metres (about 89 feet) of wire are used for each square metre of stone that is cut (8 feet of wire per square foot) Completing a 6-metre-high by 9-metre- (30-foot-] long cut thus requires approximately 1,450 metres (about 4,800 feet) of wire; indeed, a typical wire saw setup may require 3 to 5 km (2 to 3 miles) of wire driven by an electric motor or diesel engine and directed around the quarry hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 101822artor2019 Mining ~ Britannia Onine Encyclopedia by a system of sheave wheels. A single wire may make several cuts at one time by suitable sheave direction. The advantage of wire sawing is that it produces a smooth cut that minimizes later processing and does not damage adjacent rock, The technique has largely been superseded by others, however. In hard rocks such as granite that have a significant quartz content, channels may be cut by handheld or automated jet burners. A pressurized mixture of fuel oi and air or of fuel oil and oxygen is burned in a combustion chamber similar to a miniature rocket engine, producing a high-temperature, high-velocity flame. A channel 75 to 1SO mm (3 to 6 inches) wide and up to 6 metres deep can be formed. Another technique for cutting slots involves drilling a series of long parallel holes, using pneumatically or hydraulically powered percussion drills. In line drilling, closely spaced pilot holes may be drilled first and the intervening material then removed by reaming with a larger-diameter bit. Other arrangements using special guides are also available. For softer, less-abrasive rocks, the remaining rock web between holes may simply be chipped or broached out. Rock between less closely spaced holes (125 to 250 mm [about $ to 10 inches] apart) can be broken rather than removed. One technique for doing this involves the use of special explosives to exert a high gas pressure against the hole walls and thereby produce a crack along the firing line. A mechanical technique for accomplishing this is the use of feathers and wedges. Feathers are two half-round pieces of steel that are inserted into all of the holes forming a side of the block. The quarry worker works down the row, inserting a wedge between each pair of feathers and then tapping the wedges with a sledgehammer. This forces pressure from the wedge to the feathers so that eventually a crack line forms. This procedure is commonly followed to form the bottom of a block and for dividing large blocks into smaller blocks. In the latter case a line of small-diameter holes only a few centimetres deep is required. In addition, special cement grouts that expand during curing, as well as special hydraulic pressurization techniques, have also been used. Arelatively new development is the diamond wire saw. This consists of a 6-mm steel carrier cable on which diamond-impregnated beads and injection-molded plastic spacers are alternately fixed. The plastic spacers protect the cable against the abrasiveness of the rock and also maintain the diamond segments on the cable. Relatively clean water serves both as the flushing mediurn and to cool the wire. The initiation of a cut requires two boreholes 40 to 90 mm (16 to 35 inches) in diameter. One hole is drilled down from the upper corner of the block, and the other is drilled horizontally along the bottom to intersect the vertical hole. The wire is strung through the holes, and a driving mechanism supplies the power to move the wire and apply the proper tension. The diamond wire cut is very narrow (thus reducing tps: wwwbritannica com/prinvartcter384098 nine2artor2019 Mining ~ Britannica Ontine Encyclopedia waste}, and it does not produce cracks or fissures in the stone. Moreover, once the saw is set up, an operator is not required, Large chain saws, similar to those used for cutting trees but equipped with tungsten carbide or diamond-tipped cutters, are applicable to marbles, limestones, travertines, shales such as slate, and some types of sandstone. The chain, made up of removable links that carry the tool holders, rides in @ channel with replaceable walls and bottom. The machine is self-propelled through a rack-and-pinion mechanism along modular track sections. Channels may be cut in the stone by high-pressure jets of water with or without the addition of an abrasive substance. Water is forced through a small-diameter nozzle at extremely high velocity, creating new cracks and penetrating small natural cracks. In the process, thin layers of rock are sliced away. The advantages of water-jet channeling are that it cuts narrow, straight channels with very little noise and that it does not damage the wall surface. Underground mining When any ore body lies a considerable distance below the surface, the amount of waste that has to be removed in order to uncover the ore through surface mining becomes prohibitive, and underground techniques must be considered. Counting against underground mining are the costs, which, for each ton of material mined, are much higher underground than on the surface. There are a number of reasons for this, not the least of which is that the size of underground mining equipment—because of ground conditions, ore body geometry, and other factors—is much smaller than in the open pit. Also, access is much more limited. All of this means that productivity, as measured in tons produced per worker per shift, can be 5 to 50 times lower, depending on the mining technique, than on the surface. Balanced against this is the fact that underground only ore is mined, whereas in the open pit there are often several tons of waste stripped for each ton of ore. Once a decision has been made to go underground, the specific mining method selected depends on the size, shape, and orientation of the ore body, the grade of mineralization, the strength of the rock materials, and the depths involved. For example, if the ore is very high grade or carries a high price, then a higher cost method can be used. In order to minimize the mixing of ore and waste, highly selective extraction methods are available, but if ore and waste can be separated easily later (for example, by using magnets in the case of magnetite), then a less-selective bulk mining method may be chosen. The orientation, specifically the dip, of the ore body is particularly important in method selection. If the dip is greater than about 50°, then systems using gravity to move the ore can be considered. If the dip is less than about 25°, then systems using rubber-tired equipment hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 121822artor2019 Mining ~ Britannia Onine Encyclopedia for ore transport can be considered. For ore bodies having dips in between these, special designs are required, The openings made in the process of extracting ore are called stopes or rooms. There are two steps involved in stoping. The first is development—that is, preparing the ore blocks for mining—and the second is production, or stoping, itself. Ore development is generally much more expensive on a per-ton basis than stoping, so that every effort is made to maximize the amount of stoping for a given amount of development. For steeply dipping ore bodies, such as the one illustrated in the figure, this means having as large a distance as possible between production levels. The resulting larger openings would offer an opportunity to use larger, more productive equipment, and fewer machines and workplaces would be needed to achieve a given production level. In stoping, the geometry—that is, the size and shape—of the ore body imposes one constraint on the size of openings that can be constructed, and the strength of the ore and wall rocks imposes another. Most rock materials are inherently much stronger than the concrete used in the construction of highways, bridges, and buildings, but they also contain structural defects of various types, and it is these defects that determine the strength of the rock structure, If the defects are very close together, filled with crushed materials, and unfavourably oriented, then the underground openings must be kept small. As one goes deeper into the Earth, the thickness and, consequently, weight of the overlying rock increase. Pressure from the sides also increases with depth; the amount of this pressure depends on the rock type and the geologic situation, but it can range from about one-third of the vertical pressure to as high as three times the vertical, In the world’s deepest mines, which are more than 4 km (2.5 miles) below the surface, pressure becomes so intense that the rock literally explodes. These rock bursts are major limitations to mining at depth. A specialized field of engineering known as rock mechanics deals with the interaction between rock mass and mine openings Mine development Prior to the production of ore, a certain capital investment in mine development work is required. In open-pit mines this consists of building access roads and stripping the overlying waste material in order to expose the ore and establish the initial bench geometries. For an underground mine the development stage is considerably more complicated. Some of the development components of an underground mine are illustrated in the figure. Vertical openings: shafts and raises hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 191822artor2019 Mining ~Brtannca Online Encyclopedia The principal means of access to an underground ore body is a vertical opening called a shaft. The shaft is excavated, or sunk, from the surface downward to a depth somewhat below the deepest planned mining horizon. At regular intervals along the shaft, horizontal openings called drifts are driven toward the ore body. Each of these major working horizons is called a level. The shaft is equipped with elevators (called cages) by which workers, machines, and material enter the mine. Ore is transported to the surface in special conveyances called skips. Shafts generally have compartments in which the media lines (e.g., compressed air, electric power, or water) are contained. They also serve as one component in the overall system of ventilating the mine. Fresh air may enter the mine through the production shaft and leave through another shaft, or vice versa. Another way of gaining access to the underground is through a ramp—that is, a tunnel driven downward from the surface. Internal ramps going from one level to another are also quite common. If the topography is mountainous, it may be possible to reach the ore body by driving horizontal or near-horizontal openings from the side of the mountain; in metal mining these openings are called adits. Ore that is mined on the different levels is dumped into vertical or near-vertical openings called ore passes, through which it falls by gravity to the lowest level in the mine. There itis crushed, stored in an ore bin, and charged into skips at a skip-filling station. In the head frame on the surface, the skips dump their loads and then return to repeat the cycle. Some common alternative techniques for ore transport are conveyor belts and truck haulage. Vertical or near-vertical openings are also sometimes driven for the transport of waste rock, although most mines try to leave waste rock underground Vertical or subvertical connections between levels generally are driven from a lower level upward through a process called raising. Raises with diameters of 2 to 5 metres (7 to 16 feet) and lengths up to several hundred metres are often drilled by powerful raise-boring machines. The openings so created may be used as ore passes, waste passes, or ventilation openings. An underground vertical opening driven from an upper level downward is called a winze; this is an internal shaft. Horizontal openings: drifts All horizontal or subhorizontal development openings made in a mine have the generic name of drift. These are simply tunnels made in the rock, with a size and shape depending on their use—for example, haulage, ventilation, or exploration. A drift running parallel to the hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 141322arr0r2019 Mining ~ Britannica Online Encyclopedia ore body and lying in the footwall is called a footwall drift, and drifts driven from the footwall across the ore body are called crosscuts, A ramp is also a type of drift. Because the drift is such a fundamental construction unit in underground mining, the process by which it is made should be described, There are five separate operations involved in extending the length of the drift by one round, or unit volume of rock. Listed in the order in which they are done, these are drilling, blasting, loading and hauling, scaling, and reinforcing Drilling is done in various ways depending on the size of the opening being driven, the type of rock, and the level of mechanization. Most mines use diesel-powered, rubber-tired carriers on which several drills are mounted; these machines are called drill jumbos. The drills, themselves may be powered by compressed air or hydraulic fluid. In percussive drilling a piston is propelled back and forth in the cylinder of the drilling machine. On the forward stroke it strikes the back end of a steel bar or drill rod, to the front of which is attached a special cutter, or bit. The cutter’s edges are pushed into the bottom of the hole with great force, and, as the piston moves to the back of the cylinder, the bit is rotated to a new position for the next stroke. Through the action of high eneray, frequency (2,000 to 3,000 blows per minute), and rotation speed, holes may be drilled in even the hardest rock at a high rate. A pattern of parallel blastholes is drilled into the rock face at the end of the drift. The diameter of these holes ranges from 38 to 64 mm (1.5 to 2.5 inches), but in general one or more larger-diameter uncharged holes are also drilled as part of the initial opening. These latter serve as free surface for the other holes to break as well as expansion room for rock broken by the blast. Explosives may be placed in the blastholes in the form of sticks or cartridges wrapped in paper or plastic, or they may be blown or pumped in. They are composed of chemical ingredients that, when properly initiated, generate extremely high gas pressures; these in turn induce new fractures in the surrounding rock and encourage old fractures to grow. In the process rock is broken and displaced. For many years dynamite was the primary explosive used underground, but this has largely been replaced by blasting agents based on ammonium nitrate (AN; chemical formula NH_,NO,) and fuel oil (FO; chemical formula CH, ). Neither of these components is explosive by itself, but, when mixed in the proper weight ratio (94.5 percent AN, 5.5 percent FO) and ignited, they cause the following chemical reaction: 3NH,NO, + CH, —> CO, +7H,0+3N, + heat The products of the above reaction (carbon dioxide, water, and nitrogen, respectively) are commonly present in air. If there is too much fuel oil in the mixture, however, the poisonous hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 191922arr0r2019 Mining ~ Britannica Online Encyclopedia gas carbon monoxide will be formed; with too little fuel oil, nitrous oxides, also poisonous, are formed. For this reason gases are carried out of the mine through the ventilation system, and blasting is normally done between shifts or at the end of the last shift, when the miners are out of the mine. Blastholes must be fired in a certain order so that there is sufficient space to accommodate the broken rock. Those closest to the large empty holes are fired first, followed by those next to the resulting larger hole. This continues until the holes at the contour are reached. To create such an expanding pattern, the timing of explosions is very important. There are both electric and nonelectric systems for doing this. In the electric system an electric current is passed through a resistive element contained in the blasting cap. When this heats up, it initiates a fuse head, which in turn ignites a chemical compound that burns at a known rate. This combination serves as the timing or delay element within the cap. At the other end of the delay is the primer, an explosive (generally lead azide, mercury fulminate, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate [PETN]) that, upon detonation, releases a great deal of energy in a very short time. This is sufficient to ignite the larger amount of ANFO explosive packed into the hole. The most common time interval between adjacent delays is 25 milliseconds. Other caps are available in which the delays are introduced electrically through the use of microcircuitry. These have the advantage of extremely little variation among caps of the same delay period; also, the number of delay periods available is much greater than with burning-compound caps. After blasting, the broken ore is loaded and transported by machines that may be powered by compressed air, diesel fuel, or electricity. Highly mechanized mines employ units that load themselves, haul the rock to an ore pass, and dump it. Known as LHD units, these come in various sizes denoted by the volume or weight of the load that they can carry. The smallest ones have a capacity of less than 1 cubic metre (1 ton), whereas the largest have a 25-ton capacity. In small, narrow vein deposits, tracked or rubber-tired overshot loaders are often employed. After the bucket of this machine is filled by being forced into the pile, it is lifted and rotated backward so that it dumps into a built-in dump box or attached railcar. Overshot loaders are commonly powered by compressed air. Another type of loading machine features special gathering arms that sweep or scrape the broken material into a feeder, whence it is fed via an armoured conveyor belt into waiting trucks or railcars, Although most loading machines have an onboard operator-driver, some are controlled remotely via television monitor. ‘A.25-ton loading-hauling-dumping machine used in the underground mining of hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 161922arr0r2019 Mining ~ Britannica Online Encyclopedia magnetite at the Malmberget iron mine near Gallvare, Sweden, © Ove KohlerLKAB After the broken rock has been removed (and sometimes even during the loading process), the roof, walls, and face are cleaned of loose rock. This process is called scaling. In small openings scaling is normally done by hand, with a special steel or aluminum tool resembling a long crowbar being used to “bar down" loose material. In larger openings and mechanized mines, a special machine with an impact hammer or scaling claw mounted on a boom is used. Scaling is an extremely important step in making the workplace safe. Depending on the ground conditions and the permanence of the openings, various means of rock reinforcement may be employed before beginning a new round of drifting. The ideal is for the rock to support itself; this is accomplished by keeping rock blocks in place, thereby allowing rock arches or beams to form, but often these blocks need to be reinforced by various implements, the most common being rock bolts inserted into holes drilled around the opening. In one technique a steel bolt equipped with an expansion anchor at the end is inserted into the hole. Rotation of the bolt causes the anchor to expand against the wall of the hole, and further rotation compresses a large steel faceplate, or washer, against the rock, effectively locking the blocks together. A pattern of such bolts around and along an opening creates a rock arch. If the rock pieces are quite small, a steel net (much like a chain-link fence) or steel straps can be placed between the bolts. Some mines simply cement reinforcing bar or steel cables in the boreholes. Shotcrete, concrete sprayed in layers onto the rock surfaces, has also proved to be a very satisfactory means of rock reinforcement. Ventilation and lighting Ventilation is an important consideration in underground mining. In addition to the obvious requirement of providing fresh air for those working underground, there are other demands. For example, diesel-powered equipment is important in many mining systems, and fresh air is required both for combustion and to dilute exhaust contaminants. In addition, when explosives are used to break hard rock, ventilation air carries away and dilutes the gases produced Special fans, controls, and openings are used to direct fresh air to the working places and spent or contaminated air out of the mine. In very cold climates incoming ventilation air must first be warmed by gas- or oil-fired heaters. On the other hand, in very deep mines, because of high rock temperatures, the air must be cooled by elaborate refrigeration systems. This makes the energy costs associated with ventilation systems very high, which in turn has created a trend toward sealing unused sections of the mine and changing from diesel to electric machines. hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 11822artor2019 Mining ~Brtannca Online Encyclopedia Properly lighted working places are very important for both safety and productivity. Each underground miner is equipped with a hard-hat-mounted lamp with the battery worn on the belt. In some mines this is the primary source of lighting under which the various jobs are done. In others, however, many jobs have been taken over by machinery equipped with high- powered lights that fully illuminate the working areas. Fixed lighting is installed along travel ways and at shaft stations, dumping points, and other important locations. Water control The amount of water encountered in underground mining operations varies greatly, depending on the type of deposit and the geologic setting. Some mines must be prepared only to reuse the water introduced in such operations as drilling; others must contend with large inflows from the surrounding rock. In extreme cases special water doors and underground chambers must be constructed in order to control sudden large inflows. Typically, mine water flows or is pumped to a central collection point called a settling basin, or sump. From there it is pumped through pipes located in the shaft to the surface for treatment and disposal. Mi g flat-lying deposits Many of the ore deposits mined today had their origins in an ocean, lake, or swamp. environment, and, although they may have been pressed, compacted, and perhaps somewhat distorted over time, they still retain the basic horizontal orientation in which the minerals were originally deposited. Such deposits are mined by means of either of two basic techniques, longwall or room-and-pillar, depending on the thickness, uniformity, and depth of the seam, the strength of the overlying layers, and whether surface disturbance is permitted. Room-and-pillar mining The most common mining system is room-and-pillar. In this system a series of parallel drifts are driven, with connections made between these drifts at regular intervals. When the distance between connecting drifts is the same as that between the parallel drifts, then a checkerboard pattern of rooms and pillars is created, as shown in the figure. The pillars of ore are left to support the overlying rock, but in some mines, after mining has reached the deposit's boundary, some or all of the pillars may be removed Longwall mining hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 181922ertor2019 Mining ~ Bhtannica Online Encyclopedia In the longwall system the ore body is divided into rectangular panels or blocks. In each panel two or more parallel drifts (for ventilation and ore transport) are driven along the opposite long sides to provide access, and at the end of the panel a single crosscut drift is driven to connect the two sides. In the crosscut drift, which is the “longwall,” movable hydraulic supports are installed to SEESISENS| provide a safe canopy under which the seam can be Room-and-pillar mining of a horizontal ore mined. A cutting machine moves back and forth under body. this protective canopy, cutting the mineral from the Encyclopeedia Britannica, Inc. longwall face, and an armoured conveyor carries the mineral to the access drifts, where it is transferred onto other conveyor belts and out of the panel. As the mineral is removed, the supports are moved up, allowing the overlying layers of rock to cave in back of the canopy. The process as described above is for softer rocks—such as trona, salt, potash, mineral- bearing shale, and coal—which can be cut by machine. (Longwall mining of coal is discussed in greater detail in coal mining: Underground mining) In hard rocks, such as the gold- and platinum-bearing reefs of South Africa, the same basic pattern is followed, but in these cases the seam is removed by drilling and blasting, and the ore is scraped along the face toa collection point. Roof support is provided by hydraulic props, wooden packs, and rock or sand fill Mi g steeply dipping deposits Many vein-type deposits are not flat-lying but, because of the way they were emplaced or distortions that have taken place, are found in various vertical or near-vertical orientations. Often there are sharp boundaries between ore and gangue—as will be assumed in this, discussion. Blasthole stoping When the dip of a deposit is steep (greater than about 55"), ore and waste strong, ore boundaries regular, and the deposit relatively thick, a system called blasthole stoping is used. Adrift is driven along the bottom of the ore body, and this is eventually enlarged into the shape of a trough. At the end of the trough, a raise is driven to the drilling level above. This raise is enlarged by blasting into a vertical slot extending across the width of the ore body. From the drilling level, long, parallel blastholes are drilled, typically 100 to 1SO mm (about 4 to 6 inches) in diameter. Blasting is then conducted, beginning at the slot; as the miners retreat hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 19022ertor2019 Mining ~ Britannica Onine Encyclopedia down the drilling drift, blasting successive slices from the slot, a large room develops. Several techniques are available for extracting blasted ore from the trough bottom. There are a number of variations on blasthole stoping. In sublevel stoping, shorter blastholes are drilled from sublevels located at shorter vertical intervals along the vertical stope. A fairly typical layout is shown in the figure. In vertical retreat mining the stope does not take the shape of a vertical slot. Instead, the trough serves as a horizontal slot, and only short lengths at the bottoms of the blastholes are charged with explosives, blowing a horizontal slice of ore downward into the trough. Another short section of the blastholes is then charged, and the process is repeated until the upper level has been reached. Shrinkage stoping Shrinkage stoping is used in steeply dipping, relatively narrow ore bodies with regular boundaries. Ore and waste (both the hanging wall and the footwall) should be strong, and the ore should not be affected by storage in the stope. The miners, worl \g upward off of broken ore, drill leseienne sess ““NEES3| blastholes in a slice of intact ore to be mined from the Blosthote stoping wih the dring ofong, | Ceiling of the stope, and the holes are charged with parallel blastholes and the loading of blasted | @xplosives. From 30 to 40 percent of the broken ore is ‘fe from draw points located along a trough | withdrawn from the bottom of the stope, and the ore in at the bottom of the stope. the slice is blasted down, replacing the volume Enoyslopedia Britannica Ine withdrawn. The miners then reenter the stope and work off the newly blasted ore. Shrinkage stoping is rather difficult to mechanize; in addition, a significant period can elapse between the commencement of mining in the stope and the final withdrawal of all the broken ore. Cut-and-fill mining This syste can be adapted to many different ore body shapes and ground conditions. Together with room-and- pillar mining, it is the most flexible of underground methods. in cut-and-ill mining, the ore is removed in a ‘Shrinkage stoping Encyclopeedia Britannica, Inc. series of horizontal drifting slices. When each slice is hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 201322ertor2019 Mining ~ Britannica Onine Encyclopedia removed, the void is filled (generally with waste material from the mineral-processing plant), and the next slice of ore is mined. In overhand cut-and-fill mining, the most common variation, mining starts at the lower level and works upward. In underhand cut-and-fill mining, work progresses from the top downward. In this latter case cement must be added to the fill to form a strong roof under which to work. Overhand cut-and-fill mining in a stope with access provided by a ramp is illustrated in the figure. In this particular design raises are constructed in the fill as mining proceeds upward. These perform various functions, such as manways or ore passes, but an alternative would be toload and haul the rock by LHD to an ore pass located in the footwall. Where ground conditions permit, it is possible to use a combination of cut-and-fill mining and sublevel stoping called rill mining. In this method drifts are driven in the ore separated by a slice of ore two or three normal slices high. As in sublevel stoping, vertical slices are removed by longhole drilling and blasting, but, as the slices are extracted, filling is carried out. In this way the amount of tsxirmeeg| OPEN Ground is kept small. lex nents rin eS Overhand cutand-fil mining, Sublevel caving Encyetopaodia Britannica, Inc This method owes the first part of its name to the fact, that work is carried out on many intermediate levels (that is, sublevels) between the main levels. The second half of the name derives from the caving of the hanging wall and surface that takes place as ore is removed. In the transverse sublevel caving system shown in the figure, parallel crosscuts are driven through the ore body on each sublevel from the footwall drift to the hanging wall. Drifts on the next sublevel down are driven in the same way, but they are positioned between those above. Blastholes are then drilled in a fan pattern at regular intervals along the crosscuts, Blasting begins at the hanging wall on the uppermost sublevel. As the broken ore is removed, caved material from the hanging wall and above follows, so that, as more and more ore is drawn, the amount of waste removed with it increases. When the amount of waste reaches a certain level, loading is stopped and the next fan is blasted. For certain minerals such as magnetite, in which ore and waste can be easily and inexpensively separated, dilution of the ore is less of a problem than for other minerals. Mining massive deposits hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 21922ertor2019 Mining ~ Bhtannica Online Encyclopedia Several of the methods described above (e.g., blasthole stoping, sublevel caving) can be applied to the extraction of massive deposits, but the method specifically developed for such deposits is called panel/block caving. It is used under the following conditions: (1) large ore bodies of steep dip, (2) massive ore bodies of large vertical extension, (3) rock that will cave and break into manageable fragments, and (4) surface that permits bese seme? subsidence. ease Siete erent ‘Sublevel caving, with LHD machine moving | Two development levels—the production level and, 15 cee cninpatoistakcaratta ° | metres (50 feet) higher, the undercut level—are development of new sublevels proceed established at some distance (100 to 300 metres [330 to below. 980 feet]) below the top of the ore. A series of parallel Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. drifts are driven at the undercut level, and the rock between the drifts is blasted. This forms a large horizontal slot that removes the support from the overlying ore so that it caves. In the caving process the ore body breaks into pieces small enough to be easily removed from the bottom troughs, or drawbells, which are located at the production level. LHD machines or similar conveyances transport the ore to ore passes, As ore is withdrawn from the troughs, caving progresses upward, eventually reaching the surface. Only the ore i ally extracted in creating the troughs and undercuts has to be drilled and blasted; the remaining ore is broken as it moves its way downward to the production level. The challenge is obviously to maintain the troughs and mst) draw points during the drawing period. Panel caving of a massive ore body. Enoyclopeedia Britannica, Inc. Placer mining Placers are unconsolidated deposits of detrital material containing valuable minerals. The natural processes by which they form range from chemical weathering to stream, marine, and wind action. Typical minerals recovered in placers are gold, tin, platinum, diamonds, titaniferous and ferrous iron sands, gemstones (rubies, emeralds, and sapphires), and abrasives (rutile, zircon, garnet, and monazite). These are minerals of high specific gravity and physical toughness. Although there are several different types of placer deposits, the two most economically important are stream and beach placers. Stream (or alluvial) placers are formed by running hips betannica comvprintartca/384099 220822art072019 Mining ~Brtannca Online Encyclopedia water, while beach placers are forrned by the action of shore waves on preexisting or currently forming stream placers. Because of the shifting of sea and land throughout geologic time, placers can be found at any elevation above or below sea level. The particular techniques chosen to mine them depend on a number of physical conditions: the extent, thickness, and character of the deposit and bedrock; the orientation of the deposit; the thickness of the overburden; the source and quantity of water available; and the value per unit ‘Aluvial diamond mining at Kenema, Siera | Volume of material. For placers that are too thin or too Leone deeply buried to be mined by surface techniques, an Bavaria-Vorlag underground system based on shaft sinking and drift, driving may be considered. In this case, because of the unconsolidated nature of the material, heavy support is often required. Nevertheless, most placers are excavated by surface techniques; broadly speaking, these may be classified by whether the operations are based on land or on a floating plant, Land-based operations Of the land-based techniques, panning is the simplest and most labour-intensive. Usually, a pan is filled with placer dirt, and then it is submerged in still water. While underwater the contents of the pan are kneaded with both hands until all the clay has dissolved and the lumps of dirt are thoroughly broken. Stones and pebbles are also picked out. Then the pan is held flat and shaken under water to permit the valuable mineral to settle to the bottom, and, ina series of quick motions, the pan is tilted and raised repeatedly until the lighter top material is washed off and only the valuable heavy mineral is left. Good prospects for panning include unworked ground in or around old workings, crevices in the bedrock of river channels, old river bars, and dry creek beds, Sluicing Another hand method involves the use of a sluice box. This is a sturdy rectangular box, nearly always built of lumber, with an open top and a bottom roughened by a set of riffles. The most common riffies are transversely mounted wooden bars, but they may also be made of wooden poles, stone, iron, or rubber. Water and placer dirt are introduced at the upper end of the inclined sluice box, and, as they flow downward, the specially shaped riffles agitate the current, preventing lighter material from settling while retaining the valuable heavy mineral. hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 2avg22a/1072019 Mining ~ Britannica Ontine Encyclopedia \ “ Mechanized methods Aw Mechanized land-based placer operations excavate placer material with draglines, shovels, backhoes, front- end loaders, and dozers. The material is then delivered to concentrating plants or sluice boxes for mineral recovery. Such methods are suitable to narrow, shallow, or bouldery deposits and to irregular and steep topography that is not easily mined by other techniques. ‘The rocker, or cradle, which enabled one ‘miner to handle more material than by simple panning. It was easy to transport and set up anywhere a source of water was, available. The miner would shovel material | example). A natural flow of water is used to disintegrate into the hopper, regularly add water, and | and then transport the material through a sluice, where rock the cradle from side to side in order to Ground sluicing is a special technique for the mining of natural placers as well as artificial ones (tailings piles, for the valuable mineral is concentrated. In a method known sift the material onto the apron below. As the as hydraulicking, in-place material is excavated by niosle socal gos woudbeingeded | moving a stream of high-pressure water through a by wood or metal rifles and colleced by | ozzle over the mining face. The resulting slurry then hand. moves into a downgrade channel and into a contained circuit for concentrating. Although hydraulic mining is sometimes used to mine coal underground, its primary Enoyclopeedia Britannica, Inc. application is on the surface, where it is a practical way to mine relatively fine-grained, unconsolidated material from placers, tailings, alluvium, and lateritic deposits. A major application is in stripping overburden for the development of open-pit mines. Floating-plant operations Dragline or backhoe In certain cases placer material is most economically excavated with a shore-mounted dragline or backhoe and a floating (barge-mounted) concentrating plant. (The digging equipment may also be mounted on a separate barge or on the same barge as the plant) Material is dug from the sides and bottom of the mining pond and deposited into the washing plant’s hopper. Oversized material is rejected by screening and placed in waste piles, while the undersized material is distributed to a gravity-separation system consisting of Tiffled sluices, jigs, or similar equipment. After treatment, as much waste as possible is returned to the pond, but, because of swell, some waste may be deposited outside the pond area. The pond moves along with the mining front. The backhoe technique has the advantages of powerful digging and good control hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 240322arr0r2019 Mining ~ Britannica Online Encyclopedia Dredging Dredging is the underwater excavation of a placer deposit by floating equipment. Dredging systems are classified as mechanical or hydraulic, depending on the method of material transport. The bucket-ladder, or bucket-line, dredge has been the traditional placer-mining tool, and it is still the most flexible method for dredging under varying conditions. It consists of a single hull supporting an excavating and lifting mechanism, beneficiat ion circuits, and waste- disposal systems. The excavation equipment consists of an endless chain of open buckets that travel around a truss or ladder. The lower end of the ladder rests on the mine face—that is, the bottom of the pond where excavation takes place—and the top end is located near the centre of the dredge, at the feed hopper of the treatment plant. The chain of buckets passes around the upper end of the ladder at a drive sprocket (called the upper tumbler) and loops downward to an idler sprocket (the lower tumbler) at the bottom. The filled buckets, supported by rollers, are pulled up the ladder and dump their load into the hopper. After the valuable material has been removed by the treatment plant, waste is dumped off the back end of the dredge. The clamshell dredge, another mechanical system, is characterized by a large single bucket operating at the end of cables. Although it can operate in deeper water than other systems and handles large particles and trash well, it has the disadvantage of being a discontinuous, batch-type system, taking approximately one bite per minute. In pure hydraulic dredging systems, the digging and lifting force is either pure suction, suction with hydrojet assistance, or entirely hydrojet. They are best suited to digging relatively small-sized loose material such as sand and gravel, marine shell deposits, mill tailings, and unconsolidated overburden. Hydraulic dredging has also been applied to the mining of deposits containing diamonds, tin, tungsten, niobium-tantalum, titanium, monazite, and rare earths. The digging power of hydraulic systems has been greatly increased by the addition of underwater cutting heads. The cutter suction dredge has a rotary cutting head or other excavating tool for loosening and mixing soil at the face of the mine. The material falls of a centrifugal pump, and this transports the slurry (containing 20 to 25 percent solids) to the processing plant. Normally, the dredge is held in place during downward to the mout! cutting by a pile called a spud. Winches and wire ropes are used to swing the dredge in an arc around the spud until all the material in the arc has been removed. The dredge is then moved ahead and the process repeated. The cutter suction dredge is most suitable for hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 251922artor2019 Mining ~ Britannia Onine Encyclopedia mining softer deposits where the material is of a relatively low specific gravity or fine particle size—for example, in sand and gravel pits, phosphate mines, and various salt deposits. The bucket-wheel dredge is identical to the cutter suction dredge except that a wheel excavator is used in place of the rotary cutter, It is better at excavating harder materials, has better digging characteristics at the bottom of the cut, and traps heavy minerals such as gold or tin that might fall away from the standard cutter. However, it is more expensive and mechanically complex than the cutter suction dredge. William Andrew Hustrulid Marine mining Although the sea is a major storehouse of minerals, it has been little exploited; given the relative ease with which minerals can be obtained above sea level, there is no pressing need to exploit the sea at the present time. In addition, the technology required to exploit the sea and seafloor economically has not been developed, and there is also a general lack of knowledge regarding the resource. Nevertheless, as a potential source of mineral wealth, the sea can be divided into three regions—seawater, beaches and continental shelves, and the seafloor. Seawater Seawater contains by weight an average of 35 percent dissolved solids. The most important constituents, in decreasing order, are chloride, sodium, sulfate, magnesium, calcium, potassium, bromine, and bicarbonate. (In addition to the oceans, minerals are also recovered from the waters of inland salt seas, the Dead Sea and the Great Salt Lake being two notable examples.) While seawater is an important source of magnesium, by far the most common minerals extracted from seawater are salts—especially common table salt (sodium chloride, NaCl), the chlorides of potassium and magnesium, and the sulfates of potassium and magnesium. These minerals are mined by evaporation, very often in large shallow ponds with energy being supplied by the Sun. Evaporation of seawater The criteria for the production of salt by the evaporation of seawater are (I) a hot, dry climate with dry winds, (2) land available and the sea nearby, (3) a soil that is almost impermeable, (4) large areas of flat ground at or below sea level, (5) little rainfall during the evaporating months, (6) no possibility of dilution from freshwater streams, and (7) inexpensive transportation or nearby markets. The main features of pond facilities constructed to exploit these criteria include (1) impervious base soils and dikes to retain the brine, (2) canals to hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 200922artor2019 Mining ~ Britannica Ontine Encyclopedia transmit brine from the source to the appropriate ponds, (3) pumps to elevate the brine over dikes and existing land gradients, and (4) structures to facilitate flow between ponds. In a modern system of solar ponds, raw brines are pumped or channeled into pre- concentration ponds, where evaporation brings the sodium chloride level to saturation. The brines, which then contain 19-21 percent sodium chloride and 28-30 percent total dissolved solids, are transferred to another pond to crystallize the salt. The dwell time in this pond varies (in one operation at the Great Salt Lake, it takes about one year). The sodium chloride crystallizes and precipitates out prior to the time when the other dissolved constituents become concentrated to saturation. Companies producing only sodium chloride will discard the brine well before reaching the saturation point of contamination, but producers of potassium salts will continue the evaporation process in order to extract as much of the sodium ion as possible before their desired product reaches ther salts in order to avoid saturation, After the desired salt has crystallized and collected on the pond floors, it is removed, or harvested, with graders, front-end loaders, and haulage trucks and taken to the processing plant. Evaporation of effluents Increasing attention has been devoted to the extraction of salts from brines discharged as effluent after the distillation of fresh water from seawater. By using these brines for the extraction of minerals, several important advantages are gained. First, the cost of pumping is carried by the conversion plant; second, the brine temperature is relatively high, which aids in evaporation; and, third, the concentrations of salts in these effluents are as much as four times the concentrations in primary seawater. Ma ¢ beaches and continental shelves Although micas, feldspars, and other silicates, as well as quartz, form the bulk of the material on most beaches, considerable quantities of valuable minerals such as columbite, magnetite, ilmenite, rutile, and zircon are also commonly found. All these are classified as heavy minerals, and all are generally resistant to chemical weathering and mechanical erosion. Less commonly found in minable concentrations are gold, diamonds, cassiterite, scheelite, wolframite, monazite, and platinum. For the mining of beach deposits above sea level, conventional surface techniques are sufficient. Draglines are commonly used, since they can work in the surf zone as well Offshore beach and placer deposits are mined by wire line or dredge. In wire line methods the digging tools or buckets are suspended on a steel cable and lowered to the sediment surface, where they are loaded and retrieved. Crab buckets (going by such names as hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 222artor2019 Mining ~ Britannica Ontine Encyclopedia clarnshells and orange peels) consist of a hinged digging device that, in closing, bites into the sediment and contains it inside the closed shell. The bucket and its load are then hoisted to the surface, where the shell is opened to dump the load. Dredges come in many varieties similar to those used to mine placer deposits (see above Dredging). Being a continuous process, bucket-ladder dredging can produce at high rates, depending on bucket size, power, and digging conditions. Dredges of this type have been used successfully all over the world for mining gold, tin, and platinum placers as well as diamond deposits. Their offshore use has been limited to gold and tin. The hydraulic suction dredge has been mainly used by mining companies to remove overburden from ore deposits. Its greatest application is in moving unconsolidated sediments of low specific gravity over long distances where a continuous supply of water is available. For digging in semiconsolidated sediments, bucket-wheel suction dredges and cutter suction dredges are used. Also effective are air-lift dredges, which operate by injecting compressed air into a submerged pipe at about 60 percent of the depth of submergence. This reduces the density of the fluid column inside the pipe so that, if the top of the pipe is not too far above the surface of the water, the air-water mixture will overflow it. Water and sediment rush into the bottom of the pipe to replace that lost in the overflow at the top. The capacity of these air-lift dredges for lifting solids can be substantial; they are also extremely simple because they have no submerged moving parts The seafloor The floors of the great ocean basins consist to large extent of gently rolling hills, where slopes generally do not exceed a few degrees and the relief does not vary by more than a few hundred metres. The mean depth of the ocean is 3,800 metres (about 12,500 feet). The dominant seafloor sediments are oozes and clays. ‘An estimated 10"° tons of calcareous 00zes, formed by the deposition of calcareous shells and skeletons of planktonic organisms, cover some 130 million square km (50 million square miles) of the ocean floor. In a few instances these oozes, which occur within a few hundred kilometres of most countries bordering the sea, are almost pure calcium carbonate; however, that of the limestones used in the manufacture of they often show a composition similar t portland cement. An estimated 10"° tons of red clay covers about 104 million square km (40 million square miles) of the ocean floor. Although compositional analyses are not particularly exciting, red clay may possess some value as a raw material in the clay products industries, or it may serve as a source of metals in the future. The average assay for alumina is about 15 percent, but red hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 aise2artor2019 Mining ~Brtannca Online Encyclopedia clays from specific locations have assayed as high as 25 percent alumina; copper contents as high as 0.20 percent also have been found. A few hundredths of a percent of such metals as nickel and cobalt and a percent or so of manganese also are generally present in a micronodular fraction of the clays and in alll likelihood can be separated and concentrated from the other materials by a screening process or by some other physical method. Underlying the hot brines in the Red Sea are basins containing metal-rich sediments that potentially may prove to be of considerable significance. It has been estimated that the largest of several such pools, the Atlantis II Deep, contains rich deposits of copper, zinc, silver, and gold in relatively high grades. These pools lie in about 2,000 metres (about 6,600 feet) of water midway between Sudan and the Arabian Peninsula. Because of their gel-like nature, pumping these sediments to the surface may prove relatively uncomplicated. These deposits are forming today under present geochemical conditions and are similar in character to certain major ore deposits on land. The most important mineral deposits known (but not yet exploited) are phosphorite and manganese nodules. From an economic standpoint the manganese nodules (actually concretions of manganese dioxide) are more important. These nodules are found in a variety of physical forms, but the average size is about 3 cm (1.2 inches). An estimated 15 trillion tons of manganese nodules lie on the Pacific Ocean floor alone. Averaging about 4 cm (1.6 inches) in diameter and found in concentrations as high as 38,600 tons per square km, these manganese nodules contain as much as 2.5 percent copper, 2.0 percent nickel, 0.2 percent cobalt, and 35 percent manganese. In some deposits, the content of cobalt and manganese is as high as 2.5 percent and 50 percent, respectively. Such concentrations would be considered high-grade ores if found on land, and, because of the large horizontal extent of the deposit, they are a potential source of many important industrial metals. ‘Two means of bringing nodules to the surface on a commercial scale seem to have merit. These are the deep-sea drag dredge and the deep-sea hydraulic dredge. The deep-sea drag dredge would be designed to skim only a thin layer of material from the seafloor until its, bucket is filled with nodules. The dredge would then be retrieved, the bucket drawn up over a track on the back of the dredging ship, and the load dumped into a hopper. Such a system, along with its associated submerged motors and pumps, could be used to mine the nodules at rates as high as 10,000 to 15,000 tons per day, from depths as great as 6,000 metres (about 19,700 feet) Asan intermittent operation that would require significant nonproductive time periods for lowering and raising the bucket, drag dredging would have serious economic disadvantages. Any large-scale operation for mining seafloor sediments would have to be continuous in order to be efficient, and the hydraulic dredge could be a solution to this challenge. A hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 204322artor2019 Mining ~ Britannica Ontine Encyclopedia hydraulic dredge arrangement might involve a pump, an air-lift system, and a self-propelled bottom nodule collector. Different nodule-pickup principles would involve a variety of buckets, scrapers, brushes, and water jets. The location of the pump with respect to the surface of the ocean would depend on the fluid-solids ratio of the material in the pipe as well as the fluid velocity. Although the recovery of manganese nodules from the seafloor has been too costly to mount an operation, diamonds and other minerals have been successfully extracted from the seafloor using remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and vertical tunnel cutters. William Andrew Hustrulid John Lawrence Mero Solution mining Brine solution mining Natural brine wells are the source of a large percentage of the world’s bromine, lithium, and boron and lesser amounts of potash, trona (sodium carbonate}, Glauber's salt (sodium sulfate), and magnesium. In addition, artificial brines are produced by dissolving formations containing soluble minerals such as halite (rock salt; sodium chloride), potash, trona, and boron. This latter activity is known as brine solution mining, and this section focuses on the solution mining of salt. All techniques begin with the successful drilling of a borehole to the top of the salt formation. The well is cased, or lined, with one or more pipes of steel or another material, and the hole is then extended to the bottom of the formation. At this point any one of four different production configurations is used. In the top injection technique, tubing is suspended inside the well to the bottom of the hole. Water injected into the annulus, or open ring, between the inner tube and the casing emerges at the top of the salt formation and dissolves the salt nearest the entry point. The brine sinks to the bottom of the cavity, where it is pushed out of the well through the tube. The result is a cavern with a “morning glory” shape (that is, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom). In the bottom injection technique, the same basic geometry is used, but the fresh water is injected through the suspended tube at the bottom of the formation, and the brine is extracted through the annulus at the top. The cavern begins as “pear-shaped (that is, wide at the bottom) and changes into a barrel shape; if the process is continued, a mature morning glory shape results. In the bottom annular injection technique, water is injected through the casing annulus, which is positioned near the bottom of the salt formation, and brine is withdrawn through the tubing, which is set slightly deeper. This creates a barrel-shaped cavern. A variation of bottom annular injection is to suspend two concentric tubes in the cased well. Water is injected through the annulus between the first and second tubes, and brine is extracted from the lower inner tube. Oil and air are injected hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 300322artor2019 Mining ~ Britannica Ontine Encyclopedia through the annulus between the casing and the first tube and, being lighter than water or brine, float to the top of the cavern, where they inhibit upward growth of the cavern while allowing lateral growth. When the desired cavern diameter at a particular elevation has been achieved, the oil or air pad is withdrawn, allowing upward cavern growth. Caverns of 100 metres (330 feet) or more in diameter can be produced in both bedded and dome salt by using the above techniques. Production is markedly increased when the caverns from adjacent wells can be made to coalesce. In such cases one well becomes the injection well and the other the production well. Indeed, it is common to have an injection well in the centre surrounded by several production wells—typically a five-spot pattern with the injection well surrounded by four production wells. The brine is pumped to a plant or solar pond, where it is condensed through evaporation. Frasch sulfur recovery Although the Frasch process is used to recover sulfur from both bedded and salt-dome- related deposits, only the latter type is described here. Within the capstone sequence overlying a salt dome, sulfur can be found disseminated in porous or fractured limestone that is sandwiched between barren, impervious, and insoluble layers of rock. The well is started by drilling a borehole in the top of the caprock and setting a casing with a diameter of 200 to 250 mm (about 8 to 10 inches). A hole is then drilled from this casing to the bottom of the limestone-sulfur formation, and a 150-mm (6-inch) pipe is set. This pipe is perforated at two levels. Inside the pipe is yet another pipe, this one 75 mm (3 inches) in diameter, which extends almost to the bottom of the sulfur-bearing limestone. Finally, a 25-mm (1-inch) pipe is suspended from the surface inside the 75-mm pipe. Superheated water (about 170 °C [340 °F) is injected down the annular space between the 150-mm pipe and the 75-mm pipe. It is forced out of the upper set of perforations into the porous formation, which is heated to a temperature above the melting point of sulfur (about TIS °C [240 °F}. The liquid sulfur, being heavier than water, sinks to the bottom of the formation, where it flows into the 75-mm pipe through the lower perforations in the 150-mm, pipe. The molten sulfur is taken all the way to the surface by reducing its density through the injection of compressed air via the 25-mm tube. William Andrew Hustrulid hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 3322arr0r2019 Mining ~ Britannica Online Encyclopedia CITATION INFORMATION ARTICLE TITLE: Mining WEBSITE NAME: Encyclopaedia Britannica PUBLISHER: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. DATE PUBLISHED: 25 April 2017 URL: httpsi//www.britannica.com/technology/mining ACCESS DATE: October 29, 2019 hitps:wwwcbritannica com/prinartcter384098 321g