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By Hugh K. Taylor

"With some justification, people have long complained about the indefinition of ore reserves. Perhaps they were led to expect too much; from former and easier definition practices in the once common underground mines with exposed and available assets, where the obsolete term 'ore in sight' was at least partly literal. But such mines have become rarer, and their underground development less affordable. For most projects, valuations and its definitions have thus been advanced from actual to prospective mines, leaving a very wide gulf between 'what is there' and 'what may happen to it'. This brings the double challenges of reduced geological and technical assurance and the protraction of economic uncertainties.This paper avoids the popular field of regional resources, being confined to what may possibly be mined within single or closely grouped deposits. For these, many estimates of tonnage and grade must be made, defined and declared long before assessment of feasibility; and the uncertainties of the latter make it an unsound base for defining the earlier quantities. Despite the best of intentions, implied or inferred promises may proveimpossible to honour.A simpler framework of definitions is suggested, to some extent reverting to an earlier dependence on supporting work rather than on opinions of economic assurance or future events that are more properly the functions of production and cash flow schedules."

Jan 1, 1994

By S. Shankar

The phenomenon of re-entrainment is seen in many environments, such as sand dune formation, soil erosion, fugitive dust emission, spread of radio-nuclides from accidents involving nuclear weapons, etc. A thorough review of existing literature reveals that work on re-entrainment of dust in mine atmospheres is scant. The present study was undertaken as a part of on-going research in the Respirable Dust Center on the prediction of ambient dust concentrations in mine atmospheres (Ramani, 1983) to identify the contribution of dust re-entrainment to the spatial and temporal concentration in mine airways and included wind tunnel and in-mine studies. A set of seven experiments was performed in the Lake Lynn Laboratory Mine of the U.S. Bureau of Mines under controlled conditions. Two types of source coal dust, anthracite and bituminous, were subjected to airflow with a range of air velocities and walking by two different walkers. Six sets of instruments were used along the test section for sampling the airborne particles. The average air velocity just above the coal dust bed varied between 2.1 to 3.2 m/s. Due to re-entrainment as a result of the airflow conditions, the average respirable dust concentration in the center of the mine airway increased to 0.09 mg/m3 (standard deviation = 0.03 mg/m3) from an initial value of 0.02 mg/m3. The concentration of all (i.e., total) airborne dust increased to 0.17 mg/m' (standard deviation = 0.10 mg/m') from an initial value of 0.02 mg/m'. The action of personnel walking, however, caused higher amounts of re-entrainment. Average concentration of respirable and total dust at the center of the mine airway increased to values of 0.28 mg/m' (standard deviation = 0.12 mg/m3) and 1.53 mg/m3 (standard deviation = 1.0 mg/m3), from initial values of 0.03 mg/m3 and 0.05 mg/m3, respectively. It was observed that the dust concentrations were much higher near the floor, immediately at the end of the coal dust bed. Depending on the level of activity and the amount of dust deposited in mine airways, re-entrainment may become an important source of airborne dust away from the point of actual mining.

Jan 1, 1994

By C. Stapel, AA Groningen, R. J. De Meijer

"In recent years the Environmental Research Group of the KVI has been developing a number of radiometric techniques that may be employed in mineral sand exploration. These techniques involve: radiometric fingerprinting for assessing sand provenances and mineralogical composition; thermoluminescence for dating and provenance determination of sediments; a towed seabed detector to map seafloors for radiogenic heavy minerals and assessing heavy mineral volumes; and simplified transport mechanism models to explain and predict heavy mineral concentrations.All techniques exploit the property that heavy minerals as a group contain concentrations of naturally occurring uranium and thorium that are a hundred to a thousand times higher than in light minerals. In this paper the physics of a number of methods will be described together with a number of results. Based on these results potential applications to mineral exploration and mining are discussed."

Jan 1, 1994

In the past five years, there has been an evolution in the assessment and control of mining risks in the New South Wales coal mining industry. This change has involved the development and use of structured, systematic, team-based risk assessment exercises to identify, assess and control unacceptable risks to people, equipment and production. The outcomes have improved the management systems in the mine. This paper discusses the evolution of the risk assessment approach in equipment design and mine operations, as well as the specific risk assessment methodology. The paper also presents the reactive side of risk management, the method of investigating failures in the management system, usually referred to as incidents or accidents.

Jan 1, 1994

By Derek J. Fray

Electric arc furnace dusts, especially those containing zinc ferrite, are notoriously difficult to process to give valuable products and non-toxic residues. The ideal process would remove and recover the toxic non-ferrous metals as pure metals, of commercial value, and non-toxic residue which can be used as a raw material in the steel industry. From an examination of the thermodynamics of the oxides and chlorides of the various elements in the dust, it is apparent that the chlorides of the toxic non-ferrous elements are more stable than the oxides while the reverse applies to the ferrous elements. This offers the opportunity for a complete separation of the zinc, lead and cadmium from the iron oxide. Results are presented for the chlorination of electric arc furnace dusts under oxidising conditions and the subsequent treatment of the chlorides to recover the pure metals and chlorine which can be recycled back to the reactor.

Jan 1, 1994

By Peter W. Harben

Once considered the dowdy country cousins of the glamorous metallics, industrial minerals are shedding their old image. They are neither common nor easy and their time has come in an age of increasing specialization. Consider that of the 45 or so industrial minerals and rocks listed in [Table 1], almost three-quarters have ten or fewer significant suppliers (i.e., those individual countries contributing 2% or more of total world production); in more than half the cases, 85% of world production is accounted for by only five countries or fewer. Curiously, even materials that appear to be virtually ubiquitous like crushed rock and common salt have significant production vacuums. For example, there is a severe lack of sound aggregates along the US Gulf Coast and common salt production on a large scale is virtually absent in central Africa. These examples all underline the obvious, but acute truism that "The single most important fact about mineral resources is that they are not distributed equally over the world" (Flawn, 1966). Just as significant today is that human resources are not distributed equally over the world, and so arise some interesting commercial incongruities. In certain regions raw materials are plentiful but consumers are not, and without a market a mineral deposit is merely a geological curiosity. Elsewhere, there may be a market but no local raw material supply. For example, despite a huge market there is no or virtually no commercial production of chromite, diamonds, and manganese in the United States and Canada, nor phosphate rock, diamonds, rutile, and zirconium minerals in western Europe. In contrast, Australia with its small domestic market is the world's largest supplier of bauxite, diamonds, ilmenite, natural and synthetic rutile, and zircon; the same is true for South Africa which is a leading producer of chromite, manganese, diamonds, andalusite, ilmenite, rutile, and zircon (Table 2). In the commercial world, Nature's uneven distribution is counterbalanced by deep sea international trade.

Jan 1, 1994

By T. T. Natarajan, Nagy EI-Kaddah

"Numerical simulation of electromagnetic confinement systems generally requires large CPU time due to the strong coupling between the electromagnetic and the free boundary problems. The present paper examines the accuracy and the computational efficiency of the most common numerical schemes used in modeling such systems. Levitation melting was taken as a test case. In this study, a comparison was made between the finite element and surface integral methods for electromagnetic field calculations. The computational efficiency of Lagrange and the modified Hestenes methods for solving the free boundary problem were investigated. The convergence of the Lagrange method was found to be much faster than the modified Hestenes method. It was also found that finite element method not only gives accurate solutions, but faster convergence to the final equilibrium shape than the surface integral method. The applications and the limitations of these techniques in modeling electromagnetic confinement systems will be discussed.IntroductionIn recent years there has been a growing interest in the use of electromagnetic forces for confinement of molten metals as a means to eliminate molten metal contamination during melting and to improve surface quality of cast products. Continuous casting of metal without contact of a mold is now a reality, and is being commercially applied for casting of aluminum slabs /1/, and copper rods /2/. New applications of electromagnetic confinement in melting and casting include containerless melting (Magnetic Suspension Melting) /3/, edge containment in twin roll casting, and meniscus shape control in continuous casting of steel /4/.Modeling of confinement systems involves the determination of the electromagnetic field and the equilibrium shape. These two problems are strongly coupled due to the dependence of the field on the shape of the melt. While significant advances have been made in computational electromagnetics /5/, the application of developed computational techniques to electromagnetic confinement problems is not a simple task. The principal difficulty in using these methods is that the solution domain is not known a priori. due to coupling between the electromagnetic field and the free boundary problems. These two problems have to be solved simultaneously, leading to an iterative solution procedure. As a result, numerical simulation of electromagnetic confinement systems are computationally intensive with computational time at least an order of magnitude larger than the fixed domain problems."

Jan 1, 1994

By Nino Catalano

The combination of two top levels of cross-lot braces designed and installed to act as a truss, and vertical post-tensioning of the panels allow the unbraced excavation of a 36' span. Philosophy of Excavation Support System The excavation of interest is for the cut-and-cover box sections of the southern approach to the Third Harbor Tunnel, which is part of the Central Artery/Tunnel project in Boston, Massachusetts. The 60' deep excavation is located very close to an existing building which is supported by piles, as shown in Figure 1. Therefore, it was necessary to minimize ground movement which may damage the building.

Jan 1, 1994

By James M. Barker, George S. Austin

Stone, one of the oldest building materials, today remains a well-established material throughout the construction industry. The use of natural stone is much less prevalent now than in the past. It is still widely considered to be the most aesthetically pleasing, prestigious, and durable building material. New and re-opened quarries are coming onstream to meet increased demand related to new building technology and increased residential use of stone. CLASSIFICATION No classification can completely eliminate overlap between dimension stone, aggregate, and decorative stone because most stone is multi-purpose. Many used for decorative purposes are not produced specifically for that end use. Rock otherwise considered waste in dimension stone or aggregate quarries can be decorative stone coproducts (Fig. 1). Many uses require a compromise between decorative and structural qualities (Bowles, 1992, written commu¬nication). Shipley (1945) used decorative stone interchangeably with or¬namental stone. Gary et al. (1972) defined decorative stone as that used for architectural decoration, such as mantels, columns, and store fronts, but added that it is sometimes set with silver or gold in jewelry as curio stones. Bates and Jackson (1987) also restricted decorative stone to that used for architectural decoration. Meanings of otherwise identical terms used in the stone industry differ be¬tween geologists, engineers, and quarriers. They often carry a much broader meaning for quarriers and engineers compared to their very specific use by geologists (Makens et al., 1972). Decorative stone, including ornamental stone, is more broadly defined by geologists as any stone used primarily for its color, texture, and general appearance. It is not used primarily for its strength or durability, such as construction stone, or in specific sizes, such as dimension stone. The decorative stone industry uses a much wider range of stone types compared to stone that is dimensioned. Decorative stone usually serves some structural pur¬pose, but is not load-bearing to any great extent. Weak or costly stones serve in decorative, not structural, applications. STATISTICS AND END USES Decorative and dimension stone data are difficult to separate because the US Bureau of Mines keeps statistics only on dimension stone and crushed stone. The value of domestic dimension stone production in 1990, which includes some decorative stone, was about $210 million compared to imports of about $524 million and exports of about $35 million. Production was 1 080 t of which at least one-third was for decorative uses (Taylor, 1992). The principal uses are rough blocks in building construction (23%) and monu¬ments (18%); the remainder is used as ashlar (18%), curbing (12%), and miscellaneous (29%). Major rock types are granite (50%), limestone (30%), sandstone (10%), slate (3%), marble (2%), and other (5%) (Harben, 1990). Crushed stone valued at $5.6 billion was produced in the United States in 1990 by 1700 companies operating 3400 active quarries in 48 states (Tepordei, 1991). About 52% is used in con¬struction, 9% in cement and lime manufacturing, 2% in agricul¬ture, 2% in industrial uses, and 35% for unspecified uses including decorative aggregate. Limestone and dolomite comprise about 71%, granite 14%, and traprock 8% of the stone crushed in the United States. The remaining 7% are, in descending quantity, sandstone, quartzite, miscellaneous rock, marble, shell, calcareous marl, volcanic cinder and scoria, and slate. The basic types of decorative stone are: rough stone, aggregate, cut or dressed stone, and manmade stone [(Table 1)]. Rough Stone Rough stone is used as it is found in nature with very limited processing such as minor hand shaping, edge fitting, and size or quality sorting (Perath, 1992, written communication). This stone type is often marketed locally in relatively small tonnages and includes fieldstone and flagstone. The primary end uses of rough stone are landscaping, edging, paving, or large individual stone landscape or interior accents [(Fig. 2)]. Fieldstone: Fieldstone is picked up or pried out of the ground (gleaned) without extensive quarrying and includes garden or large landscaping boulders (Austin et al., 1990, Hansen, 1969). Boulders and cobbles may be split or roughly trimmed for use in rubble walls and veneers, both interior and exterior. Popular fieldstone rock types include sandstone, basalt, limestone, gneiss, schist, quartzite, and granite, but many others are suitable. Much fieldstone is col¬lected by individuals or small companies because the industry is labor intensive and markets are small. The stone may be sold locally in small quantities from the back of vehicles (Austin et al., 1990). Fieldstone includes many rock types, sizes, and shapes with the only common denominator that it must be set by hand and be durable (Power, 1992, written communication). Moss Rock. Moss rock is fieldstone partially covered by algae, mosses, lichens, and fungi that give the rock an aged and variegated patina (Austin et al., 1990). The plants are supported by moisture and nutrients in the stone. Moss rock is used for landscaping, walls, and fireplaces. Although almost any durable rock can be a moss rock, most are slabby or rounded sandstone and limestone (Fig. 3). Flagstone: Flagstone or flagging consist of thin irregular slabs used for paving, walkways, and wall veneers. Random-shaped flagging is produced widely in the United States. Suitable stone

Jan 1, 1994

By J. A. Lombardi

Innovative hard rock narrow-vein, longwall, and stope leach mining systems concepts are described and evaluated economically. The principal tool proposed for use in these systems for both mine development and production is the U.S. Bureau of Mines radial-axial splitter. The mining systems concepts are prefeasibility level costed and projected to be cost competitive for steeply dipping veins, 0.6-1.2 m wide, for horizontal tabular ores 2 m -5 m thick, and for leachable ores with greater than a 1.7:1 stripping ratio. In all of the systems the orebody, less swell, is retained underground for use as backfill.

Jan 1, 1994

Host minerals for gold have been of great interest to exploration geologists and metallurgists for a variety of reasons. The depletion of high grade ores in many parts of the world requires that greater attention be given to the study of host min-erals for gold. Some host minerals have been employed in exploration as traces for gold. They are also essential in the design of extraction processes for treating gold ores.This paper reviews the mineralogy of important gold deposits of Papua New Guinea (PNG), Indonesia and New Zealand and focuses attention on the ore minerals and rock-forming minerals that host gold.

Jan 1, 1994

By David P. Keller, George Podolsky

Iron oxides are unique in that they are the only significant colored mineral found in a natural state suitable for use as a pigment after being pulverized to pigmentary size. The world production of iron oxide pigments is estimated by the authors to be between 350 and 400 kt. The fact that highly colored natural deposits of iron ore are found throughout the world accounts for its use in prehistoric man's artistic cave paintings. These early artists did not realize that they had established man's first paint test which now has some 20,000 years of exposure. In addition to abundance, iron oxides (about 7% of the earth's crust) have the advantage of low cost, permanency, and are non- toxic. Through the centuries, succeeding civilizations have utilized iron oxides as a major source for decoration and protection when these properties were desired. In the last century the chemical industry has improved on nature by developing a complete range of synthetic iron oxide pigments which surpass the pigments produced from natural iron ores in uniformity, color quality, and chemical purity. In the United States, the combined production of natural and synthetic iron oxides produced sales of over $97 million in 1980 (Spimad, Jr., 1980), increasing to $138 million by 1990 (Templeton, 1990) NOMENCLATURE With the increasing importance of the synthetic iron oxides it is necessary to make a distinction between the natural or mineral pigments and the synthetic pigments. Natural pigments are those products that are derived from selected ores and should not be confused with iron ores mined for steel production. Iron ores that are mined for steel must be capable of being mined and reduced to iron on a competitive commercial basis. These ores are selected on the basis of iron content and processing economics. It is therefore unusual when iron ores for steel production are suitable for use as mineral pigments. Natural pigment ore sources are selected for their special physical-chemical properties and are able to command a premium price over iron ores used for steel manufacturing. Synthetic pigments, and in this instance iron oxides, are those pigments produced from basic chemicals. Through chemical synthesis pigmentary particles are produced as opposed to the use of comminution, the major procedure common to all natural iron oxide pigments.

Jan 1, 1994

By Ralph A. MacMillan

Electronic systems introduced for haulage equipment in recent years probably exceed what mine management is prepared to use. Haulpak trucks alone are equipped with General Electric's Statex III drive system controls, Detroit Diesel's DDEC, Cummins' Centry engine management system and the Haulpak Management System (HMS). The future holds promising developments of even more sophisticated electronics that will lead to unmanned truck operation and control. Trolley-assist will finally come into its own due to the importance of environmental issues, as well as the high potential for increased productivity with dramatically lowerfuel consumption. All of these high technology systems do not mean much unless they add value to mining operations. Some of the benefits that can be expected from these systems are reviewed. In the near future, haul truck control and monitoring systems will be fully linked by telemetry to a mine's dispatch system, as well as to its maintenance management information system. The manufacturer and distributor can also be kept in the communications loop, so that they can better serve customer needs. Portable computers will allow technicians to talk to machine systems to quickly locate a problem, look up service information, check what parts are required and electronically order them.

Jan 1, 1994

By D. T. Smith, L. M. Hsiung, J. J. Schmitt, J. W. Golz, R. L. Lankey, H. N. G. Wadley, J. Z. Zhang, B. L. Halpern

"The microstructure and mechanical properties of Al/AI2O 3 metal-oxide nanolaminates fabricated by' a novel Jet Vapor Deposition (JVD) process at substrate temperatures of ~25° and -250°C have been investigated using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and nanoindentation methods. The thickness of the oxide layer was held constant between 2 and 5 nm, whilst the Al layer thickness was systematically varied from -3 to -50 nm. Continuity of the Al layers was significantly improved when the nanolaminates were deposited at an elevated substrate temperature (-250°C). The yield strength of the nanolamintes with Al layers greater than -25 nm follows a Hall-Petch type relationship, whereas that of the nanolaminates with Al layers less than -25 nm is better predicted by a Koehler-Lehoczky strengthening model. IntroductionAluminum-aluminum oxide (presumably A12O3) nanolaminates have been recently fabricated using a novel Jet Vapor Deposition (ND) process developed and patented by Jet Process Corporation [1-4]. ND uses sonic, high purity helium (He) gas jets to entrain atomically dispersed vapor and deposit films. It is of interest here because it can deposit multilayered structures (laminates) inexpensively at high rates. Materials with a thin, multilayer structure are of interest because they potentially offer novel mechanical and physical properties [5]. Koehler in 1970 used an image force model to investigate the strength of laminated materials and proposed the use of alternating layers of high and low shear modulus metals to produce high strength composite materials [6]. He predicted that dislocations would have to overcome a large repulsive image force in order to move from metal layer B of lower shear modulus (uB) into metal layer A of higher shear modulus (uA)' The image force (F) is given by the relation:"

Jan 1, 1994

By Kenneth A. Gutschick, Harry L. Francis

A large number of minerals and chemicals (Table 1), some mineral-derived, are used in the treatment of both potable water and domestic sewage waste water and solids (Anon., 1990). In water treatment there are ten principal process uses as shown in Table 2 (Anon., 1990), which also lists the major chemicals in each process. Since lime (calcium oxide, calcium hydroxide, and dolomitic lime) is the largest chemical (by tonnage) used in water treatment, this chapter will deal primarily with this product. Note that it is included in five of the process uses shown in Table 2, and that indirectly it is also used in at least one other category (taste and odor control, where lime is used with potassium permanganate to provide optimum pH condition). POTABLE WATER TREATMENT Water Softening The biggest use for lime in water treatment involves water softening, where it serves to reduce carbonate hardness caused by dissolved bicarbonate and carbonate compounds. Currently there are more than 1000 domestic water softening plants (Table 3) located in most sections of the country, but particularly in Ohio, other midwestern states, Florida, and Texas, where limestone bedrock abounds (Anon., 1990). Among the other uses for lime in water treatment are coagulation, disinfection, and removal of heavy metals due to high pH softening, removal of certain radioactive and organic compounds and fluorides, neutralization of acidic water, removal of silica, particularly with dolomitic lime, and removal of color. Most of the above advantages accompany water softening, although at some plants lime is used specifically for one purpose, such as silica removal with dolomitic lime, minimizing pipeline corrosion by addition of lime to correct an aggressive water, and others. Hardness in water comprises two types - carbonate hardness, caused by dissolved calcium and magnesium carbonates and bi- carbonates, and non-carbonate hardness caused by dissolved non- carbonate salts, particularly calcium sulfate, calcium chloride, magnesium sulfate, and magnesium chloride. Total hardness is the sum of the carbonate hardness and non-carbonate hardness. Waters are classified as soft (0 to 75 mg/L as CaCO,), moderate (75 to 150 mg/L), hard (150 to 300 mg/L), and very hard (above 300 mg/L). Most water plants strive to reduce total hardness to about 100 mg/L, although in recent years the tendency in some cities has been to allow a little higher value in order to reduce both chemical costs and the amount of water softening sludges produced. There are four basic types of softening plants: lime softening, primarily to reduce carbonate hardness; lime-soda softening, for reduction of both types of hardness (in some plants caustic soda is used in place of soda ash, but it is more costly); split lime-zeolite, where a base exchange mineral is employed in place of soda ash (this system also requires salt [sodium chloride] to regenerate the zeolite mineral); and finally zeolite softening, which is generally used in small systems for private houses and small municipalities. Principal disadvantages of the latter system are its relatively high cost and the salt requirement, which introduces considerable quantities of soluble salts into the waste water discharge system.

Jan 1, 1994

By Thomas M. Harris

Cation exchange is not sufficiently selective to be used for the removal of heavy metal ions from a general industrial wastewater. However, if the metals can be converted to polyvalent anions through complexation, they may be removed both selectively and efficiently by anion exchange. This approach, referred to as chelation-assisted anion exchange (CAAE), has been examined using industrial wastewater samples contaminated with Ni2+ and Cr3+. For this particular application, the Ni2+ is complexed with 8-hydroxyquinoline-5-sulfonic acid, and the Cr3+ with sulfosalicylic acid. Removal efficiencies and adsorption isotherms for both the complexants and the complexes were determined in batch-mode tests.

Jan 1, 1994

By Sorentino C

Mineral valuation may appear to be a special field of financial valuation when in fact it is a subset of general investment decision theory. The only significant difference in mineral valuation is that in the case of valuing an on-going mineral asset, ie a mine, often there is no initial capital outlay involved. One is required to determine what the mineral asset as it stands is worth. But this is the same problem as determining the maximum one could pay today and not incur a loss over the life of the asset. In other words one needs to determine the Net Present Value (NPV) of the asset. The two most widely used discounted cash flow methods, NPV and Internal Rate of Return (IRR) came of age with the rapid adoption of the personal computer and spreadsheet programs. The two methods are directly related as the IRR is a special case of NPV. NPV measures the absolute increase in real wealth that can be expected from a certain investment, which makes it particularly suitable for mineral asset valuation, but ignores the efficiency of the investment. In contrast, IRR gives the expected efficiency of the investment but ignores the increase in wealth aspect. IRR has two serious theoretical weaknesses; multiple IRR's and a very rigid assumption about the rate of return of reinvested proceeds, plus if no initial equity expenditure is involved there is no IRR. The choice of the ""hurdle"" rate can also be a problem and in certain circumstances one can obtain different rankings of mutually exclusive projects using IRR and NPV. Although NPV and IRR supposedly measure financial risk, in fact they only address a very narrow area of risk, namely the time value of money given the real discount rate. They side step the issue of what the real discount rate should be and varying degrees of risk. The classical way to establish the real discount rate is to use the weighted average cost of capital.

Jan 1, 1994

By S. Pinard, A. Desbiens, R. del Villar, D. Jakelski

"During the fall of 1993, a new Pill-based control strategy was installed in the B grinding circuit at the Kidd Creek Division of Falconbridge Ltd. The control strategy was first evaluated on a grinding circuit dynamic simulator (DYNAFRAG), which permitted the discrimination between more than a dozen possible control alternatives. Once the final choice was made the necessary instruments were purchased and installed. The control strategy was configured on the plant computer and is planned to be commissioned shortly.This paper summarizes the control strategy, the design procedure, the installation and the controller tuning. Some preliminary problems posed by the process prior to implementation are also presented.IntroductionIn 1990 the GRAIIM (french acronym for Research Group on Computer Applications to the Mineral Industry) of Laval University started a research project on Knowledge Based Automatic Control (KBAC). This project is sponsored by a consortium of eight mining companies under the umbrella ofMI1EC (Mining Technology Council of Canada), the Quebec Mining Association (AMQ), CANMET and the Centre de Recherches minerales (CRM). The project also benefits from important grants from the Ministere de l'Education Superieure et de la Science and the NSREC-CRD program.The main objective of this project is the screening of advanced (knowledge-based) methods for data processing (filtering, mass balancing, etc.) and automatic control (model-based control) for their use in the mineral processing operations. The project also aims at transferring these tools to the industrial partners through annual workshops for plant engineers, annual symposia, and through specific in-plant projects where the participation of plant engineers is strongly encouraged.The main objective of this project is the screening of advanced (knowledge-based) methods for data processing (filtering, mass balancing, etc.) and automatic control (model-based control) for their use in the mineral processing operations. The project also aims at transferring these tools to the industrial partners through annual workshops for plant engineers, annual symposia, and through specific in-plant projects where the participation of plant engineers is strongly encouraged."

Jan 1, 1994

By Robert B. Parsons

"Finance Minister Paul Martin's first budget disappointed almost everyone. The business sector was disappointed at the some what feeble attempt to grapple with the country's deficit. The mining industry was disappointed by tax proposals regarding mine reclamation that fall short of the industry's needs. Has anybody been happy with a federal budget? Federal Budget DisappointsThe federal government's budget papers that were tabled on February 22, 1994, contained a rather bizarre mixture of unrelated tax proposals. The budget signals an unexpected attack on the tax treatment of debt settlements, on certain types of corporate reorgani2ations, and on income earned by foreign affiliates. This is an old style budget, which proposes a pot pourri of technical changes and policy initiatives. Mine ReclamationEffective February 23, 1994, a taxpayer's contributions to a prescribed mine reclamation trust fund will be deductible as a current expense. The budget papers do not provide a definition of what will constitute a ""prescribed"" trust: this definition will surface in due course. However, the budget papers indicate that:• income earned in such trusts will be subject to tax each year;• all withdrawals from the trust (including income already taxed) will be included in computing the income for tax purposes of the recipient;• reclamation costs will continue to be fully deductible at the time incurred; and • contributions, trust earnings, and withdrawals will not be taken into account for the purposes of determining a taxpayer's resource allowance."

Jan 1, 1994

By H. E. Frimmel

Most of the gold in the Late Archean Witwatersrand Basin is of detrital origin but, in its present form, it is metamorphosed. The only relict detrital features preserved are the morphological characteristics of some placer gold particles. Regional burial metamorphism in the shallower and deeper levels of the Witwatersrand Supergroup reached temperatures around 300°C and 350°C at pressures between 2 kbar and 3 kbar, respectively, estimated from phase relations, chlorite-chloritoid exchange thermometry and chlorite thermometry. Metamorphism of the gold involved compositional homogenization of individual gold particles and partial recrystallization. Various infJ.1tration events caused the partial mobilization of the gold at slightly lower temperatures, between 240°C and 300°C. These infiltrations can be related to crustal extension during the deposition of massive carbonate sequences of the Transvaal Supergroup (around 2.5 Ga), and later to the emplacement of the Bushveld Complex, and to the Vredefort event around 2.0 Ga ago. The mobility of the gold was dependent on the sulfur fugacity prevailing in a particular horizon which, in tum, was determined by the amount of pyrite (and other sulfides) present in that horizon. With the sulfur fugacity being controlled by stratigraphy, low fluid rock ratios in a pyrite-rich horizon were most conducive for the mobilization of the gold. Thus, long-range gold mobilization in the Witwatersrand Basin can be expected to be the exception rather than the rule.

Jan 1, 1994