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By P. Crouse, J. Obermeyer

"INTRODUCTION Site location and history The Holden Mine is a former underground copper mine that was developed and operated by the Howe Sound Mining Company (Howe Sound) from 1938 to 1957. The mine is located in north-central Washington State, U.S., near Lake Chelan in the area shown as Holden Village in Figure 1. Although Rio Tinto never owned or operated the mine, they are managing and funding a several hundred million dollar clean-up to prevent future water and soil contamination and to reclaim the former mine site under the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) Superfund process. The former mine included an onsite mill and a nearby housing complex for the miners. Howe Sound developed the mine as a series of near-horizontal drifts and tunnels, interspersed with stopes and shafts that connect different mine levels underground. The tunnels that were excavated to develop the mine total nearly 100 km in length.During development of the underground workings, Howe Sound removed more than 230,000 cubic meters (m3) of waste rock from the tunnels and deposited this material in two waste rock piles. Ore was processed from the mine in the onsite mill to produce a copper concentrate that was shipped off site for smelting. Roughly 10 million tonnes of tailings were produced as a by-product of the milling operation, most of which were deposited in three large impoundments (Tailings Piles 1, 2 and 3) directly south of and adjacent to Railroad Creek. Howe Sound closed the mine in 1957. In 1961, the property was transferred to Holden Village, Inc. (Holden Village), a not-for-profit corporation that maintains a year-round community and operates an interdenominational religious retreat in the former miners’ town. With the exception of the patented private land, the remainder of the Site is on National Forest lands and is administered by the U.S. Forest Service. The mine is remote. It is only accessible by boat or float plane from Chelan, Washington, up Lake Chelan to Lucerne, nearly 40 km. Vehicle access from Lucerne to the mine is provided through a 17.5-km-long winding gravel road that climbs 640 meters in elevation. The general site features are shown in Figure 2. Physical setting The Holden Mine is located on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountain Range at an elevation between 975 and 1,050 m above mean sea level. Holden Mine was developed adjacent to Railroad Creek, which lies in a glacial U-shaped valley carved into the igneous and metamorphic bedrock with steep-sided slopes (Figure 2)."

Jan 1, 2017

By Roger Escoda Estelrich, Joan Carles Casado Ortega, Mitchell Gerdau, Jose Raul Martinez, Jeb Pittsinger, Frank Perrone

The existing Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel complex is being expanded to include the Parallel Thimble Shoal Tunnel. This will be a subaqueous bored crossing between two islands constructed for the original 1960s immersed-tube tunnel. Jet grouting was employed by the Chesapeake Tunnel Joint Venture (CTJV) to provide watertight base plugs, launch and retrieval blocks for the tunnel boring machine (TBM), a TBM canopy to limit ground movement, and a retaining wall to enable off-island excavation: all within hydraulically placed sands. This paper will review the design and construction challenges, including soil permeability and recharge, grout communication, installed grout strengths, and remediation requirements.

Jun 23, 2024

By Tyler Acorn, Paul Worsey, Nathan Rouse

The effect of the hole diameter on vibration attenuation has not been incorporated in most vibration models in the blasting industry. In current vibration models, the charge weight and the distance from the blast are the two primary variables that are addressed. Charge weight is a function of explosive density, charge length, and charge diameter. This geometry-weight can complicate the isolation of the charge diameter variable.

Jan 1, 2013

Rio Tinto Iron Ore (RTIO) manages eleven mines in the Pilbara region, Western Australia. Three of these mines have previously or are currently mining black shale that contains varying amounts of pyrite. Several new deposits currently being evaluated and existing mines that may progress below water table in the future, will also encounter this waste material. The black shale presents not just an acid rock drainage risk but also a spontaneous combustion risk. This paper presents the black shale management strategy and provides an overview of the relevant activities undertaken by RTIO. The strategy can be divided into two components which firstly involve defining the risk and secondly involve managing the risk. The mineral waste management plan is used to identify specific mineral waste hazards by:geochemical characterisation of waste material,undertaking mine site specific risk assessments,characterising the receiving environment,identifying sulfidic boundaries in geological and mining models,quantifying the amount of sulfidic material in medium and long-term mine plans, anddesigning and sequencing black shale waste dumps. Once a mine exposes black shale the Spontaneous Combustion and Acid Rock Drainage management plan is used and the major activities are: regular site meetings with a representative from every group that works with black shale;compliance with safe working procedures for site specific and detailed activities;regular training;the use of specific explosives to prevent premature detonation;ongoing geochemical characterisation;acid water management, monitoring and analysis;regular internal and external auditing of procedures and practices; andclosure planning assessments and preparations (ie cover trials, geochemical void modelling, geochemical waste dump modelling). The success of this holistic strategy is evident by the awareness of personnel within the business, thorough understanding of the geochemistry and by undertaking proactive management of black shale during mining. The strategy and management plans adopted by Rio Tinto Iron Ore have activities that other mine sites with potentially acid forming material may like to consider implementing.

Jan 1, 2009

By Tapan Goswami, Stephen Jeric, Geoff Brent

Highwall failures in large deep open cut mines have very significant safety and commercial implications. There are many factors influencing the stability of highwalls. The major influence is the interaction of the local geology with the shape of the pit wall. This factor is in the realm of the geotechnical engineer and is beyond the control of the blasting engineer. However, a secondary influence is the blastinduced damage to the wall. In most open cut metal mines the blasting strategy to control this damage involves the use of separate production and trim blasts bounded by presplits at the final wall.

Jan 1, 2011

By W. A. Jones

"The Hollinger gold mine is in the Porcupine area, Cochrane district, in northern Ontario. The adjacent town of Timmins, which has a population of 25,856, lies 490 miles by railway north of the city of Toronto.The property was staked in the late summer of 1909. The original four claims were staked by Benjamin Hollinger, after whom the mine was named. Development commenced in the autumn of 1909 and mill construction in the winter of 1910. A catastrophic forest fire swept the district in 19ll, destroying the surface plant, so that the original 300-ton mill was not completed until June 1912. From that date up to December 31, 1945, 44,280,750 tons of ore have yielded 13,636,796 oz. gold and 2,613,354 oz. silver. The total value of the production has been $363,638,315.0REBODIES AND MINERALIZATIONThe orebodies consist of quartz veins, stringer lodes, and scockworks, with associated pyritized wall-rocks. The width of individual orebodies, as exposed by mining operations, ranges from 1 to 70 feet and averaged approximately 10 feet in 1942. The vein system forms a complex pattern in a favourable zone, which in places is 6,000 feet long and 4,000 feet wide. The deepest level being developed is 5,150 feet below the surface. Few veins are persistent for long distances, although some are continuous for more than 1,000 feet longitudinally and vertically.The host rocks consist of a closely folded series of Precambrian lava flows of Keewatin age. These are schistose and hydrothermally altered, but are believed to have originally been of intermediate to basic composition. The schistosity strikes N.70°E. and dips to the south at 75° to 80°. The structure of the formations is complex, but in the principal ore-bearing zone the general dip of the flows is to the south at a slightly flatter attitude than the schistosity."

Jan 1, 1954

By V. J. Southey

HOLLINGER mining operations have required development by 24 vertical shafts having a total length of 28,160 feet. Seventeen of these are sunk from surface and seven are interior shafts. Four surface shafts and three interior shafts are now active and, excepting the recently completed new main ore-hoisting shaft, the remainder are either abandoned, or are used for passes or for ventilation. The new shaft bottoms 60 feet below the 3,050 level, but there is much work to be done before it is placed in service. The term 'shaft practice' is intended to include shaft construction and a general treatment o typical equipment. It is a large subject for an organization the size of Hollinger and this paper is intended only to present the salient features. The writer wishes to thank the management for permission to publish this information and to acknowledge the advice and criticism o A. G. Irving, chief engineer, and the willing co-operation of other members of the Hollinger staff.

Jan 1, 1939

By G. Nuñez, M. A. Pathak, C. F. Stanley

"A 1986 report by the U.S. National Committee on Blomechanlcs (1) describes lung disease as a major national health problem. The report cites three areas that would benefit from a better understanding of the vibratory patterns of the lung. These areas are outlined below.1. In cases of respiratory distress, pressure driven artificial respirators are used. A new technique using high frequency respiration is quite promising, but the pressure distribution in the lung as a function of frequency is not yet known. At these frequencies of 1 to 60 Hz, the lung expands asynchronously (2) and a better understanding of these expansion nonunlformltles could provide valuable Information about the mechanics of high frequency ventilation.2. Listening to the sounds In the lung can yield valuable Information about the state of the lung. To improve the technique, a better understanding of how acoustic waves propagate through the lung is needed.3. The response of the lung as It Is subjected to acoustic excitation, dynamic loading or shock waves is not well understood. A better knowledge of these responees can lead to improved treatment for patients subjected to either explosive pressure waves or car crashes.4. Researchers are measuring the acoustic Impedance of the Iung to detect early states of dysfunction. Sneckenberger and Whitmoyer (3) have reported Impedances obtained at acoustic frequencies up to about 6000 Hz. However, It la not certain which parts of the lung are responding to the acoustic excitation.To Investigate the vibratory characteristics of the lung, excised rat lungs were excited via the trachea with acoustic waves at frequencies up to 6000 Hz. Thie paper describes an Instrumentation system, utlllzlng time-averaged holographic Interferometry, to detect and quantify the response of the lung surface to the acoustic excitation."

Jan 1, 1989

By AIME AIME

CHARACTERIZING the annual meeting as the biggest and best one yet has happened so repeatedly that some may suspect it has become a conventional phrase, like "good morning," and yet, what else can be said when not only one but all the many who express an, opinion use exactly those words, while the first of the two adjectives refers to a physical fact that is established by count. Perhaps there were hose who thought it not the best, but if so they were too tactful to say it out loud. So without further ado . let us admit that the one hundred and thirty-ninth general meeting of the A. I. M. E. held; as our By-laws provide, in New York during the third week of February, was the biggest and best of them all. Perhaps it is because we appreciate friendliness more as we grow older, but somehow the friendly atmosphere seems to rise slowly in temperature with the passing of the years. The actual atmosphere on the opening morning was quite the contrary, Feb. 17 being the coldest clay, so far, of this winter, and the suburbanites claimed that their thermometers had registered 5" below zero when they got up, though the official records of the weather man did not go that low. From that time the temperature steadily rose until Thursday afternoon, when the official record of 66" constituted a record high for Feb. 20 at New York. The weather man explained it by learned discussion of highs and lows, but we suspect the A.I. M. E. members must have had something to do with it.

Jan 1, 1930

Homestake's Bulldog Mountain Operation near Creede, Colorado, in the San Juan Mountains at an elevation of nearly 2,750 m (9,000 ft), is subjected to short summers and long cold winters. Creede’s history dates back to 1889 when silver ore was discovered; and by 1892 production of over a million dollars per month was being shipped from mines located along the Amethyst Fault. The Bulldog Mountain Fault remained relatively untouched by the early prospectors. The United States Geological Survey recognized the potential of this fault in 1960, which led to the staking of many claims over the structure. Homestake leased properties in 1963 and in mid- 1964 a tunnel was started at the 2,956 m (9,700 ft) level with encouraging mineralization being encountered. In 1968 a decision was reached to build a flotation mill of 318 mtpd (350 stpd) capacity. The erection of the mill was completed in early 1969, six years after the first exploration was begun. Since initial start-up, extensive drifting has been done on several separate levels. Two underground hoist installations serve the various levels and many thousand feet of vertical mining operations. Due to the unconsolidated nature of the vein, a new unique underhand cut-and- fill mining method was developed. This procedure is the reverse of the normal cut-and-fill and proceeds from the top down under cemented sand fill, which, while expensive, has greatly reduced s toping hazards. Prior to 1977, a considerable quantity of silver was lost in the slime fraction of the ores processed because of oxidation and other inherent characteristics of individual minerals. Due to Homestakefs favorable experience in treating the slime fraction of the Lead, South Dakota gold ores, experiments with leach methods to recover silver from the slimes by Carbon -In -Pulp offered' the potential for additional silver recovery. Work was begun on the Carbon-In-Pulp plant in April 1976 and completed in December of that year at a cost slightly exceeding $2 million. The C. I. P. plant was designed for 136 mtpd (150 stpd) of current plant slimes plus 227 mtpd (250 stpd) of slimes dredged from the old tailings during the summer season. The sand fraction of the flotation

Jan 1, 1981

By John F. Wiggert

DURING the early years of Homestake operations, shaft signaling from the cage tenders to the hoisting engineers was done by mechanical means. Small steel cables or jointed steel rods were suspended in the shaft compartments and counterbalanced with weights or springs. These cables or rod strings were connected to the mechanically operated gongs at the engineers' stations by means of bell cranks and steel wires. The system was simple and economical and served the purpose well until the mine reached a depth of 1000 ft., then the system became slow and cumbersome and required a considerable amount of muscular effort to operate it with much speed, because of the inertia of the heavy moving parts. The mechanical signaling was superseded by a simple electrical system consisting of a single pair of wires in steel conduit for each shaft compartment. In the shaft at each station a pull switch was connected to the wires. The switches were operated by means of bell cords, which extended from station to station. This electrical system was a great improvement over the mechanical one, but it had one serious drawback, which also applied to the older system; namely, the engineer did not know where a signal originated. Later on this signaling was improved to overcome this drawback, and to give the engineer a positive indication of a signal's origin. In this system a separate return wire from each pull switch is carried to an annunciator at the engineer's station, where it indicates the signal's origin. While the annunciator system used by Homestake is very safe and reliable, it has the inherent drawback of all wire-connected systems in that it is impossible to send a signal from a moving cage. A number of years ago Homestake became interested in the possibility of using some sort of radio transmission for shaft signaling. The company did much experimental work with purely radio signal transmission, but no practical way was discovered to use radio transmission in a mine shaft for signaling to or from a cage. Therefore, all efforts were directed to devising a practical way of using the hoisting rope as part of the circuit. It was realized that the return circuit from the rope would need to be through electrostatic coupling between the cage and the earth or ground sides of the shaft, because the guides would not always be wet enough to make possible good electrical contact between the cage and earth, therefore relatively high-frequency alternating current was chosen as the medium of transmission. Soon a practical system was developed for transmitting an electric current from a moving cage over an electric circuit of which the hoisting rope was a part. A high-frequency electric current is used as a carrier to transmit the signals or mes-

Jan 1, 1941

By Steven Mitchell

BACKGROUND Homestake Mining Company began milling operations at the Bulldog Mountain Mine near Creede, Colorado in 1969. The Bulldog Mill, rated at 350 tpd, produces a bulk flotation condentrate assaying about 180 oz/T Ag and 20% Pb, from heads of about 16 oz/T Ag and 2% Pb. The circuit is straightforward with two-stage grinding to 1-5% plus 65 mesh, followed by rougher and cleaner flotation. Reagents used are Z-6, Z-11, Aerofloat 242 and Aero Promoter 404, with an Aerofroth 65-MIBC mixture for a frother. Additional information on the geology, mine and mill are available in references (1) and (2). A flow sheet for the mill and CIP plant together is attached as Figure 1. Final flotation tailings normally vary from 1.5 - 2.0 oz/T Ag. These tailings are cycloned to produce sand for underground backfill. After cycloning, the sands are repulped and given a final scavenger float. This sand scavenger recovers a small additional amount of silver which recycles back to the main flotation circuit. The tailings are recycloned and pumped to the mine or, if the mine cannot accept sand, to tailings. The majority of the silver in the flotation tailings exists in the fine fractions; cycloning upgrades the slimes and lowers the assay of the sand. The sand, after scavenging, typically assays 0.5 oz/T Ag, and the slimes assay about 3.0-3.5 oz/T Ag. From 1969 to 1976 all of the slime tailings and the sand tailings not used underground were impounded in a tailings pond located about

Jan 1, 1983

By Frank M. Howell

Creede, one of the younger major mining camps in Colorado, grew spectacularly to a town of eight or ten thousand people in the early 1890's following discovery of rich ore in the Amethyst and Last Chance mines. Gross metal production in gold, silver, lead, copper and zinc rose to a maximum of four million dollars a year in 1893. Annual production dropped to much lower figures and ranged between one hundred and five hundred thousand dollars per year during the period from 1914 to 1940. Production reached a gross of eight hundred thousand to one million dollars per year by the mid-1950's. In the years 1953 to 1957, Steven and Ratté conducted geologic investigations which were carried on as part of a cooperative program of the U. S. Geological Survey and the Colorado Metal Mining Fund Board. In a preliminary report on the Creede District, Steven and Ratté suggested that the Bulldog Mountain Fault Zone appeared to be a favorable structure to prospect. On the basis of that recommendation, augmented by independent work done by Manning W. Cox, the property was acquired, transferred to Bulldog Mountain, Inc. and financed by an O. M. E. loan. Late in 1963 Homestake Mining Company, under a Lease and Option Agreement, backed the venture by furnishing additional funds plus management.

Jan 1, 1969

By H. L. Hinds

Economic pressures to increase production to profitable levels reduced the Homestake's gravity recovery and overall recovery to un-acceptable levels. The operation of the Home-stake gravity gold circuit has increased gravity gold recovery to over 50%, improved overall recovery and increased mill availability for increased tonnage. The gravity circuit consists of three gravity gold recovery stages. The Circuit has four (4) duplex jigs, four (4) belt concentrating strakes and four (4) concentrating tables.

Jan 1, 1989

By C. L. Wilsey, K. M. Oakes, W. J. Reich, M. J. Protani

The time frame required to complete the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process for a new mine or the expansion of an existing mine can range from nine to 24 months, or even longer. The time frame will vary depending on whether an environmental assessment (EA) or an environmental impact statement (EIS) will be completed Completing properly designed baseline studies to collect natural resource data to support the EA or EIS prior to the start of the NEPA process can shorten this time frame. In this paper, a two-year natural resource baseline study by Homestake Mining for the Ruby Hill Mine, Eureka County, NV, is used as a case study to describe how a properly designed and executed natural resource baseline study streamlined the NEPA process.

Jan 1, 2003

By J Carter, B J. Armstrong

Best practice for the submission of samples to an internal or commercial laboratory requires quality control materials to be included for the purpose of independently and comprehensively assessing laboratory performance. These quality controls include the use of certified reference materials (CRMs) and may be blind to the laboratory. Iron ore companies purchase these materials from reputable manufacturers from stock of run-of-mine materials at the appropriate grades. The international standard, ISO 17034 (ISO, 2016), specifies the competency requirements for organisations manufacturing reference materials, and includes rigorous requirements for the assessment of homogeneity, stability and establishment of property values and their uncertainties. Homogeneity is one of the most important measures of suitability for all certified reference materials and refers to the degree to which the composition and properties of a sample are uniform throughout the batch, relative to the analytical precision of the method. More specifically, homogeneity studies of candidate reference materials should be assessed for both within sample variance and between sample variance with appropriate statistical controls. The design and application of homogeneity studies are discussed as they apply to both crushed and pulverised reference materials. Crushed certified reference materials have been utilised by the iron ore industry for a number of years and provide the user with a critical assessment of variances in sample preparation in addition to analysis. Crushed reference materials are similar in presentation to an RC sample and are generally used as discrete parcels of material submitted to the laboratory from the field. Pulverise certified reference materials miss the sample preparation step and are subsampled from th delivered sachet at the point of analysis. This paper compares the relative homogeneity performance of crushed and pulverised certified reference materials by grade across key iron ore chemical constituents. Outcomes are benchmarked to the international standard ISO 9516 (ISO, 2003) for the determination of various elements in iron ores by lithium borate fusion and X-ray fluorescence. Practical implications are discussed with reference to a case study from an iron ore laboratory in the Pilbara.

Sep 18, 2023

On June 25, Herbert C. Hoover and General Pershing were honored by Oxford University with the degree of Doctor of Civil Law. The ceremony was held in the Sheldonian Theater. It was the culminating feature of the annual L Ecnaenia, or commemoration exercises. Both General Pershing and Mr. Hoover were greeted-heartily when the group filed into the theater, the great audience rising as the distinguished visitors entered and proceeded to their .places on the rostrum. Others upon whom. the degree was conferred were Baron Makino, head of the Japanese Peace Conference delegation; Marshal Joffre of France, Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, Major Gen. Sir Henry Hughes Wilson, Chief of the British Imperial Staff, and' Vice 'Admiral' Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, First Sea Lord. Former Premier Orlando, of Italy, and Premier Ignace Paderewski, of Poland, received the degree by proxy.

Jan 8, 1919

THE John Fritz Medal Board of Award, at its regu¬lar annual meeting Oct. 19, awarded its gold medal to Herbert Clark Hoover. Thus ended a process of selection begun a few years ago. The award was tentatively made a year ago by the Board, which is composed of sixteen recent past-presidents of the four national societies of Civil, Mining and Metallurgical, Mechanical, and Electrical Engineers, having together a membership of nearly 60,000. The sixteen members of the Board are: American Society of Civil Engineers : C. E. Grunsky, Robert Ridgway, George S. Davison and John F. Stevens ; American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers: William Kelly, J. V. W. Reynders, Samuel A. Taylor and E. DeGolyer; American Society of Mechanical Engineers: Fred R. Low, D. S. Jacobus, Dexter S. Kimball and Charles M. Schwab; American Institute of Electrical Engineers: Farley Osgood, M. I. Pupin, C. C. Chesney and Bancroft Gherardi.

Jan 1, 1928

By Stephen P. Quin

One of the most prospective undeveloped greenstone belts in Canada, the Hope Bay greenstone belt extends over 80km in a north-south direction and is between 7 and 20km wide. The belt lies on the arctic coast and comprises mafic meta-volcanic and meta-sedimentary rocks that are bounded by Archean granite intrusives and gneisses. The greenstone package has been deformed during multiple events and is transected by major northsouth trending shear zones that appear to exert a significant control on the localization of mineralization. The Hope Bay belt contains a number of significant gold deposits hosted in a typical Archean greenstone belt and which occur in several geologic settings, including shear-hosted, lode-style and breccia-associated. Combined, the deposits host a measured and indicated resource of 1.6 million oz of gold averaging 15.7 g/t plus an inferred resource of 2.7 million oz of gold averaging 12.3 g/t. All deposits remain open to expansion. Exploration in the period 2000-2002 by Miramar includes more than 110,000m of drilling to more fully define the nature of the known deposits, while regional exploration has focused on identifying and evaluating new targets. In carrying out its programs, Miramar uses a number of techniques to improve its chances of exploration success. Activity in 2003 includes 43,000m of drilling focused on expanding resources in the Madrid area, testing the Boston deposit at depth and continuing the hunt for more discoveries. Meanwhile Miramar is advancing one of the deposits towards a production decision, based on a low capital, high return development scenario.

May 1, 2003

By L. E. Kun, R. O. Oelofsen, E. J. J. van Vuuren

High-rate floc-blanket clarification of gold pregnant rotary filtrate was introduced at the Vaal Reefs South gold plant of the Anglo American Corporation during February 1978. A. daily 12 000 to 15 000 t of filtrate, with an average suspended-solids concentration of 350 mg/I, is continuously clarified to a concentration of less than 2S mg/I of suspended solids in a modified plant pachuca (10 m in diameter) at throughput rates of 7,7 to 8,5 ma/m2.h by the addition of 5 g/t of ferric chloride inorganic coagulant and 0,2 g/t of Superfloc NI00 flocculant. The pachuca overflow is then clarified further in seven Stellar candle pressure filters of 54,S m2 surface area to under 5 mg/I of suspended solids. The combined clarification cost when the hopper clarifier is used in conjunction with the Stellar filters is R0,0032 per ton of liquid treated, which is approximately 60 per cent lower than the cost of Stellar filtration on its own. The savings are mainly due to the reduced use of filter pre-coat, the consumption of which has dropped by 70 per cent since the introduction of hopper clarification.

Jan 1, 1979