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Who's Who in Mineral Engineering - The 1979 Directory of the Society of Mining Engineers of AIME

Jan 7, 1979

By R. W. Nash, A. E. Schwaneke, V. R. Miller

The Bureau of Mines developed a detector for controlling sorting devices to separate the copper-bearing fragments from the barren portion of Michigan native copper and western prophyry copper ores. A successful sorter could be used to preconcentrate the ore and eliminate costly hoisting or hauling of waste. An induction balance unit was developed and used in sorting tests on crushed sized - 2.5 + 1. 3-cm (- 1 + 1/2- in.) ores from the Kingston (0.9% Cu) and Centennial (1.6% Cu) mines of Upper Michigan. Concentrates of 4.0% and 7.5% Cu, respectively, were obtained at recoveries of 85 and 80% of

Jan 8, 1978

By Douglas L. Gerner

In the early 1950's fishermen and their families around Minamata Bay in Japan were stricken with a mysterious neurological illness. The Minamata disease, as it came to be called, produced progressive weakening of the muscles, loss of vision, impairment of other cerebral functions, eventual paralysis and in some cases coma and death. The victims suffered structural injury to the brain. Minamata seabirds and household cats which, like the fishermen, subsist mainly on fish, showed signs of the same disease. This led to the discovery of high concentrations of mercury compounds in fish and shellfish taken from the bay, and the source of the mercury was traced to the effluent from a factory. Since then there have been other alarming incidents. In 1956 and 1960 outbreaks of mercurial poisoning involving hundreds of persons took place in Iraq, where farmers who had received grain seed treated with mercurial fungicides ate the seed instead of planting it. Similar outbreaks occurred in Pakistan and in Guatemala. In Sweden, game birds and other wildlife, apparently poisoned by mercury-treated seeds, began to be noticed in 1960. The Swedish Medical Board in 1967 banned the sale of fish from 40 lakes and rivers after it was found that fish caught in those waters contained high concentrations of methyl mercury. In 1970 alarm rose in North America. Following the discovery of mercury concentrations in fish in Lake Saint Clair by an investigator working in Canada, restrictions on fishing and the sale of fish were imposed in many areas in the U.S. and Canada. Government agencies in both countries began to take action to control the discharge of mercury-containing wastes into lakes and streams.

Jan 6, 1973

By John S. Alexander

By Colin J. Dixon

The full realization of the potential of computers in geological in- formation system demands new approaches to the machine representation of information. At the same time, the feasibility of such a system, particularly in commercial field, demands greater freedom in input preparation and a degree of standardization in the arrangement of subject matter system. The paper describes some of the basic notions of project "GEOSEMANTICA 70". The aim of the project is to devise means of storing real geological informations in a machine rather than the representation of the information in human language form. This is seen as the only long-term solution to the problems of the complex vocabulary of geology and the complex syntax of geological description. Effectively, a machine language is being defined, consisting of a set of symbols and a date structure for representation of geological and related information. Beyond this, is the definition of a set of rules allowing the use of constrained text as an input/output medium. The investigation is oriented primarily to the representation and handling of information about mineral deposits and the associated geographic, economic and engineering information.

Jan 1, 1969

By M. Safiuddin

Within the mining industry, open-pit mining has progressed to a point where a 200-yard walking dragline is as conceivable today as a 35-yard dragline was just a few years ago. This is possible due to the technological advances and efforts of the excavator manufacturers, and the manufacturers of electrical equipment have always stayed abreast with them in meeting their requirements and in making available their experience with the latest control techniques and hardware from various fields for application in the mining industry. An electrician in the coal mines of Pennsylvania who had not heard the word "thyristor" a few years ago now wonders how the old excavators with Rototrols® and magamps could ever work. The thyristors, transistors and operational amplifiers which were considered too fragile and delicate for a rugged and severe application like the mining industry, today constitute the brain of an excavator control taking commands from the operator and giving signals to the muscles of the excavator to move the bucket within a few seconds. A giant 200-yd bucket filled with overburden moves within seconds of the operator's command. Digging cycles for these excavators range from 40 to 60 sec depending on the swing angle. With these tremendous production capabilities of the excavators, the equipment failures and downtime become very expensive, and the loss of return on large capital investment for such machines becomes intolerable. Even though these failures and downtimes cannot be avoided completely, a good preventive maintenance program can help reduce them, thus increasing the machine availability. As we shall see below, the causes for breakdowns and failures of electrical equipment can be analyzed and a good preventive maintenance program can be drawn up to eliminate most of these failures.

Jan 9, 1967

By Zay Jeffries

From the title of this chapter the reader could expect an attempt to out- line the anticipated shape of things to come, mineralwise. We have no crystal ball and if we possessed one we could claim no expertness in its use. In the first place no one can tell the future status of man. No one has any way of knowing to what extent peace will prevail, nor to what extent changes may occur in national sovereignties or forms of government or in international relationships. So future man is an uncertainty. Nor can we predict new developments that may result in significant changes in man's status or in the mineral industry or both. If, for example, this chapter had been written in the middle 1930's, nearly everything that has happened since in the fields of atomic energy and space technology would have been missed. Yet what vast changes these I have made in the status of man! Also the changes in the mineral industry have been important. A writer would have been bold indeed had he prophesied that uranium would play such an important role. But we need not confine our foggy vision to these fields. The steep rise in the use of aluminum, titanium, and germanium reflects the unpredictable in what may be thought of as the more normal pursuits. This should not discourage one from using the past and currently observable trends as bases for limited predictions. To do this, however, it is desirable to make certain assumptions about man's status without pretense that these assumptions have a high probability of fulfillment: 1. Only minor changes will occur in the geographical boundaries of the nations of the world. 2. World War III will not take place in the near future. 3. As a consequence of (2), man will not destroy himself by wanton use of atomic weapons. 4. Disarmament will take place, if at all, gradually rather than all at one time. Under the above assumptions the world will enjoy a period of relative peace even though the status may be one of an armed truce. The assump-

Jan 1, 1964

A completely automated primary crusher is now in operation at Kaiser Steel Corp.'s Eagle Mountain, Calif., iron mine. The word "completely" is italicized to underscore its literal meaning- automation so thorough that even the control room for the crusher does not require a man to watch the flickering dials and lights. The automation of the unit is such that its operation, including starting and stopping, are controlled from the secondary crusher station. The crusher-a Symons 60-in. gyratory which can handle 3600 tph-features built-in safety devices that will turn the crusher off if oil pressure drops, if oil overheats, if bearing temperatures exceed permissible limits, or if parts of its electronic brain fail. According to reports, the worst that can now happen is a plugging of the crusher.

Jan 6, 1963

By I. C. Edwards, W. J. Dengler, D. F. Lillie

By 1959 the milling plant of Bicr oft Uranium Mines Ltd. had been in operation for two years. During this time many changes, both physical and chemical, had been made in an effort to improve plant efficiency. Investigational work had been facilitated greatly by the fact that the Bicroft mill consists to a large extent of two parallel circuits; however, the number of interrelated variables is great, and it is difficult to measure, let alone control, all of them simultaneously. The Bicroft mill staff feels that much progress has been made, but there is much yet to be done and many questions still to be answered. The Addendum outlines noteworthy developments to the fall of 1960. The property of Bicroft Uranium Mines is located in Cardiff Township in the Highlands of Haliburton County, southeastern Ontario, some 140 miles northeast of the city of Toronto and 70 miles due north of Lake Ontario. The ore-bearing dikes are classed as mafic. nonsegregated, syenite and granite pegmatite. Microline, microline perthite, quartz, sodic plagioclase, and pyroxene or biotite are the main constituents with uraninite, uranothorite, fluorite, titanite, cryolite, calcite, pyrite, pyrrhotite, and molybdenite as important accessories. The mill was designed for a nominal capacity of 1000 tpd with all sections except grinding, leaching, and clarification capable of 1500 tons. Feed was entered to one mill unit on Oct. 29, 1956, and to the second parallel line on November 13. The total feed rate was at 1000 tpd on November 15. The first precipitate was produced on November 12. By August 1958 the average entry had been increased to 1410 tpd without the installation of any additional major equipment. The overall recovery has been greater than 93.0 pct on several months, but a recovery of 92.5 pct appears to be most economical. Operating time for eight months in 1958 has been 97.1 pct although all grinding mills were relined during this period. A generalized flowsheet is shown in Fig. 1 and the plant layout in Fig. 2. The ore is crushed in three stages to -3/8-in. and then is wet ground in two stages to approximately 50 pct -200 mesh. The pulp is thickened to 68 pct solids and agitated by air for 33 hr at a pH of 1.9 as maintained by the addition of 93 pct sulfuric acid. Separation of the uranium-bearing pregnant liquor from the residue is accomplished by five-stage countercurrent decantation (CCD), following which the liquor is clarified for removal of fine slimes. The clarified liquor is treated in the ion exchange equipment in which both the upgrading of the solution and the removal of some impurities is accomplished. Addition of magnesia to the high-grade eluate from ion exchange precipitates the uranium as sodium-magnesium diuranate. After being filtered and dried this precipitate is packaged in drums for shipment. The residue from CCD and the barren solution from ion exchange are neutralized by the addition of lime and pumped to the tailings disposal area. CRUSHING All crushing is done on surface in a conventional three-stage unit consisting of a 36x48-in. Birdsboro Buchanan jaw crusher, a 4 1/4-ft standard Symons cone crusher, and a 4-ft Symons shorthead. Both the two primary and the two secondary screens are 4X 8-ft Symons rod decks. Moisture content of the feed ranges from 3 to 4 pct. In the initial installation the primary screens were equipped with 5/16-in. rods at 1 1/4-in. spacing and the secondaries with 5/16-in. rods at 1/2-in. spacing. With this arrangement the average crushing rate was better than 180 tph. To reduce the work required of the grinding circuit as tonnage was increased, several changes were made in the crushing circuit. By September 1957, both secondary screens had been reduced to 3/8-in. spacing, and rod size had been reduced to 3/16-in. to provide increased open area. Average throughput was reduced to 160 tph. Later, 50 pct of one primary screen was decreased to 1/2-in. opening to better balance the load between the two cone crushers. In May 1958,

Jan 1, 1961

By Zay Jeffries

From the title of this chapter the reader could expect an attempt to outline the anticipated shape of things to come, mineralwise. We have no crystal ball and if we possessed one we could claim no expertness in its use. In the first place no one can tell the future status of man. No one has any way of knowing to what extent peace will prevail, nor to what extent changes may occur in national sovereignties or forms of government or in international relationships. So future man is an uncertainty. Nor can we predict new developments that may result in significant changes in man's status or in the mineral industry or both. If, for example, this chapter had been written in the middle 1930's, nearly everything that has happened since in the field of atomic energy would have been missed. Yet what a vast change this has made in the status of man! Also the changes in the mineral industry have been important. A writer would have been bold indeed had he prophesied that uranium would play such an important role. But we need not confine our foggy vision to the atomic energy field. The steep rise in the use of aluminum, titanium, and germanium reflects the unpredictable in what may be thought of as the more normal pursuits. This should not discourage one from using the past and currently observable trends as bases for limited predictions. To do this, however, it is desirable to make certain assumptions about man's status without even a pretense that these assumptions have a high probability of fulfillment: 1. Only minor changes will occur in the geographical boundaries of the nations of the world. 2. World War III will not take place in the near future. 3. As a consequence of (2), man will not destroy himself by wanton use of atomic weapons. 4. Disarmament will take place, if at all, gradually rather than all at one time. Under the above assumptions the world will enjoy a period of relative peace even though the status may be one of an armed truce. The assump-

Jan 1, 1959

Human progress has a visible material phase, easily discernible, that is expressed in the standard of living. This material phase, however, is only the outward expression of a spiritual or mental phase that acts as a driving force in making humanity improve both its outlook and its mode of living. The instrument of progress is the human brain. Under the urge of spiritual drive, the brain acts as a focal point to utilize the forces of nature and put them to work for the benefit of mankind. Besides intelligence, which is an innate quality, the tools of the human brain are knowledge, experience, training, initiative, and skill. Given sufficient intelligence, the human brain can make an amazing amount of progress, provided it is supplied with an adequate spiritual and moral urge and a good technical background. It is the role of education to sup- ply such a background. The material phase of human progress proceeds on a series of parallel fronts, all of them interdependent to some extent (Fig. 7). The rise of the standard of living, dependent as it is upon the manufacture and mass distribution of goods, is based essentially upon the development and utilization of the material resources of a country or land area. This development involves the extraction of mineral and organic products from Mother Earth, their transportation to manufacturing centers, their transformation into finished goods and their dis-

Jan 1, 1950

By S. S. Arentz

An organized safety program has reduced accidents at Pioche because effort is first devoted to arousing and maintaining interest in safety, followed by training in accident prevention, assigning responsibility for the detection and removal of safety hazards, and finally, by keeping score through an adequate system of records. A health program is intergrated with the safety program.

Jan 1, 1950

By Max W. Ball

Our ever-increasing use of minerals has been the outstanding fact in our American economic development. The rise in our standard of living in the past century is without equal in human history. Nowhere in time or place has the man who works lived so well, or the man who cannot work been so well cared for. We live in a new world, even the poorest of us, that our forebears of 1849 could not have dreamed. That new world has come mainly from our use of minerals. Our per capita use of nonmineral products has grown too, but by only a modest amount. Food consumption per person has grown about 15 per cent in the past fifty years; lumber use per person ,has fallen 56 per cent and that of wood for fuel 65 per cent. Of all the products of field and forest, our use, per capita, may have increased by one fifth during the present century. In contrast, our per capita use of minerals has multiplied several times. Each of us uses 2% times as much steel and 16% times as much petroleum as our fathers used in 1900. In less than half a century our per capita consumption of all minerals has probably risen by 200 to 250 'per cent. Man once built with wood; today he builds mainly with brick and stone and steel. Once he traveled by the power of hay and oats; today he travels by the power of coal and oil. Rubber made from minerals is already better for some uses than rubber tapped from trees; before long it will be better for most and perhaps all uses. Even our ladies' graceful legs are clad in mineral fiber, where once animal or vegetable fiber would have covered them. Our high standard of living is a product of the machine.. The machine is made of minerals. The machine is driven by minerals. The machine age is a mineral age.

Jan 1, 1949

APPROXIMATELY 26 percent of the total ore production to date from the largest single deposit of copper-bearing material in the world was mined during the war years, 1942 to 1945, at Chile Exporation Company's great open-pit mine at Chuquicamata, Chile. About 18 percent of the total waste removed during the life of the mine was handled in the same period. The total of ore and waste represents approximately 24 percent of the total material that has been excavated from the pit. This is more than was removed in the first fourteen years of operation from 1914 through 1927. The pit at Chuquicamata is 17/8 miles long, 1/2 mile wide, and has a present vertical extent of 817 ft between the top of the highest bench and the lowest bench being worked. However, when

Jan 1, 1948

By J. F. Myers

A bit of old philosophy: The optimist, the pessimist, The difference is droll; The optimist, the doughnut sees, The pessimist, the hole. This is a neat summation of the viewpoint of those engaged in "treating the crude mineral crust of the earth." Many of those in high places have reminded us during the year of the diminishing supply of the resources so essen-

Jan 1, 1948

By J. Robert Van Peli

IT was a strange but highly fruitful marriage-that union of hardy explorers, seeking the rich treasures of copper in the Lake Superior wilderness, with Boston's aristocracy of brains, capital, and enterprise. This historic wedlock, which has continued happily to the present day, was the means by which the wealth of Lake Superior's copper was won for the use and benefit of an expanding America. One branch of this family tree, the western branch, begins with prehistoric Indian miners, embraces the early French explorers of the Upper Lakes, and finally includes the British and American pioneers who reduced the vague rumors of copper to known fact and actually began the mining of copper in the wilderness. The other branch, the New England line, begins

Jan 1, 1948

By Carlton D. Hulin

ARE we a "have" or a "have-not" nation in our domestic supply of metals and minerals? Impinging on the ears of a people weary of war and faced with the problems of reconversion to peace, the import of this question has built up with the momentum of an avalanche. Stemming from statistics cited by Pehrson and accelerated by the pessimistic and possibly biased statements of Ickes, hardly an issue of any technical periodical dealing with mining has appeared during the past year but within whose pages was to be found some comment, some discussion of the question: Are we a "have" or a "have-not" nation? We have proved commercial reserves of high-grade iron ore in the Lake Superior region sufficient for 22 years, based upon the prewar rate of consumption; commercial copper reserves to last only 34 years, one fourth being inferred ore; zinc sufficient for nineteen years, over half being inferred; lead for twelve years, two thirds of which is inferred; mercury for only three years. So read the figures. Although admitting that these figures may be extended by new discoveries, by the use of marginal and submarginal ore, and by further technological advances, are we nevertheless to assume complete pessimism in the acceptance of the meaning of these statistics; are we to expect a rapidly increasing dependence upon foreign sources of mineral supply; are we to believe that we are at or near the peak of the "metal age" as has been held by Theodore J. Hoover? Or is some more optimistic viewpoint possible?

Jan 1, 1947

By John S. Crout

TWENTY-FIVE years ago the training of an engineer was of interest solely to the educator and to the student entering the field. At that time the engineer's position in society was relatively simple. His training emphasized design and operation and he expected to enter industry to handle the engineering problems of raw materials production, mechanical and product design, and the operation of power plants, factories, transportation and communication systems, and similar phases of industrial activity. He was not concerned with or particularly interested in the problems of management, administration, sales, publicity, industrial relations, or of legislation. To a large degree he was content to leave these matters to self-made businessmen, or men trained in law, finance, or commerce. That period in the evolution of the engineer is now history. It is generally conceded that the modern world is dependent upon engineering technology for its day-to-day survival. The continued operation of facilities on which mankind relies is dependent upon the functioning of mines, utilities, chemical plants, and other factories, all of which require the knowledge and the skills of trained engineers. Thus from a purely mechanical point of view, the engineer has become indispensable to

Jan 1, 1947

By Sheldon P. Wimpfen

RESEARCH is undertaken to find out what must be done when what we are doing now is no longer adequate. To accomplish this end, researchers apply the truths of nature to industrial evolution. A survey conducted with the co-operation of 58 universities and colleges offering degrees in mineral engineering was the basis for the table accompanying this article. This survey was undertaken with the object of presenting to faculties and student bodies, as well as to industry, all available information on what action the educational institutions of the country have taken to provide the properly trained researchers so vitally needed. A hoped for result is that the great variety of opportunities available will encourage some undergraduate students to continue in their field beyond attainment of a B.S. degree.

Jan 1, 1947

By Clyde Evarts Weed

SOME one once affirmed his great belief in luck, adding that he had found that the harder he worked the more luck he had. Clyde Weed is a firm believer in this method of courting the fugitive lady. He is at work early and late, often leaving his staff at Anaconda's offices at 25 Broadway breathless trying to keep up with the ideas teeming from a fertile brain and the actions those ideas entail. Miles ahead of his assistants much of the time, he still manages to be an agreeable fellow to work with, no small accomplishment as many can testify. Mr. Weed arrived in the world at Moorestown, Mich., on Aug. 8, 1890. Sixteen years later he entered Michigan Agricultural College, a lowly freshman. The following year, with the experience and wisdom expected of a sophomore, he transferred his studies from the reaping of a harvest on the surface of the earth to delving into the deeper, unpredictable bowels of the earth, his studies now shifted to the Michigan College of Mines. Last June his alma mater conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Engineering.

Jan 1, 1947