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By Robert C. Stephenson

In 1954, a year when general industrial production declined, it is significant that industrial mineral products continued in high demand. Phenomenal growth of the cement industry, increase in filler-fibre markets such as for asbestos and diatomite, expansion of the gypsum industry, and the increasing production of agricultural raw materials all illustrate the vitality of industrial minerals fields. Pioneer development of new industrial raw materials-wollastonite as a current example-requires keen foresight, hard work, and tremendous intestinal fortitude. The present-day requirements of industry for rigid quality control and uniformity of raw materials have resulted in highly specialized

Jan 3, 1955

By S. H. Ash

Safety records in the mineral industry for 1954 will do well to hold their own as compared with 1953, because of the poorer rate in the coalmining branches, even without the recent mine explosion at the No. 9 mine of the Jamison Coal & Coke Co., Farmington, W. Va., that killed 16 persons. .The cause of that disaster has not yet been ascertained. The metal-mining branch appears to have improved its record over the last year, however. Health Diesel equipment continues to be favored in non-coal mines. Equipment includes locomotives, trucks, tractors, and muckers. Of major concern and interest is the establishment of a new threshold limit for oxides of nitrogen-5 ppm as compared with 25 ppm. This gas is the most harmful component of diesel-engine exhaust gas

Jan 3, 1955

By R. L. Loofbourow

Trends in the metal mining industry were definitely down in 1954. With a record in 1953 of $1.8 billion output, the last year dropped to $1.5 billion, the lowest value since 1950. The decrease in iron ore production alone accounted for at least 10 pct of the decline. PROBABLY more than any previous year, political debates of 1954 marked a new high for the mining industry. Lead and zinc prices gave forth with minor rallies producing no real improvements. An anticipated drop in copper prices never came to be. Early in the year arguments for more free trade versus tariffs to restrict imports were voiced eloquently by Charles P. Taft, president, Committee for a National Trade Policy, and Andrew Fletcher, president, St. Joseph Lead Co.

Jan 3, 1955

By M. D. Cooper

Production of both anthracite and bituminous coal in 1954 was about 16 pct below 1953. Estimates on Dec. 1, 1954, indicated 27 million tons of anthracite and 385 million tons of bituminous. Decline in production was due principally to lower demand by the steel industry and the railroads, although competition from other fuels also affected coal. The year was notable for vigorous effort by the coal industry to promote the use of its product. A Cabinet Committee on Energy Supplies and Resources Policy and an Interdepartmental Committee on the Soft Coal Industry were set up by the Administration in Washington. A Governors' Fuel Conference was also organized.

Jan 3, 1955

By George M. Schwartz, Ian L. Reid

The Soudan mine in the Vermilion district of northeastern Minnesota is the oldest iron mine in the state. It has shipped ore every year since 1884 and still contributes a yearly quota of high grade lump ore. No comprehensive report on the Vermilion iron-bearing district has appeared since Clements' monograph,' but Gruner' discussed the possible origin of the ores in 1926, 1930, and 1932, and recently Reid and Hustad have added data on mining and geology." For many years geologists of the Oliver Iron Mining Div., U. S. Steel Corp., have kept up to date a series of plans and vertical sections of the Soudan mine. In connection with mine operation considerable diamond drilling has been done, and this, together with the mine openings, has permitted a reasonably accurate picture of the structure of the orebodies and wall rocks.

Jan 3, 1955

By W. E. Hess

At the Vesta mines of Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. on the Monongahela River, 35 miles south of Pittsburgh, JCM Joy continuous miners and 6-SC shuttle cars are used for pillar extraction in the Pittsburgh seam. The entire output of the mine goes into coke production for blast furnace operation. Because this coal, which has high metallurgical qualities, is close to the place where it is ultimately used and because supplies with these properties are being rapidly depleted, complete recovery is essential wherever possible. With the introduction of the continuous miner into the Vesta mines, therefore, it was necessary to plan a project which would facilitate development and provide for future total recovery. Use of continuous miners under varying conditions has necessitated changes with regard to roof action, method of development, method of pillar attack, and innovations in mining. In the following pages these changes will be discussed.

Jan 2, 1955

By A. R. Kinkel

The Shasta copper-zinc district of northern California lies in the foothills of the Klamath Mountains at the northern end of the Sacramento Valley. It contains two main areas of base-metal ore deposits, the East Shasta and West Shasta districts shown in Fig. 1. The East Shasta includes the area from the Afterthought mine, near the settlement of Ingot on U. S. highway 299 East, to the Bully Hill mine, on the north side of the Pit River, 9 miles to the north- west. The West Shasta, a well-defined northeast- trending district about 8 miles long and 2 miles wide, west of the Sacramento River, Fig. 2, is the western part of the ore-bearing area formerly known as the Shasta copper belt. Referred to in the older writings as a copper arc, this belt was thought to form a crescent extending entirely around the head of the Sacramento Valley, the convex side to the north. Recent studies by the U. S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the California State Division of Mines show that there are two districts, one at each end of the so-called copper arc, which are distinct in geologic structure and ore occurrences, and that there is only sporadic and unconnected copper mineralization between them.

Jan 2, 1955

By J. E. Papin

Morenci ores contain as an average about 0.015 pct molybdenite, MoS2. Incidental to the concentrating operations applied for the recovery of copper minerals, approximately two-thirds of the molybdenite is floated and appears in the final copper concentrate. The economic importance of molybdenum and the success achieved in its recovery in milling operations elsewhere encouraged research directed toward its recovery in marketable form. Several procedures are utilized to effect separation of molybdenite from copper and iron sulphides, but only two have wide application. In the better known of these two methods the molybdenite in the copper concentrate is depressed in a flotation operation using soluble starch as the depressant. The tailing from this treatment thus becomes a low-grade molybdenite concentrate which after thickening, filtering, and low temperature roasting is repulped with water and subjected to additional flotation steps for recovery of the molybdenite. A thio-phosphate collecting agent is employed in flotation of the copper minerals. Presumably the stability and lasting effects of that collector type necessitated the practice of depressing molybdenite followed by subsequent roasting to insure elimination of copper and iron sulphides from final molybdenite concentrate.

Jan 2, 1955

By Stephen Krickovic

As it is commonly understood in the bituminous coal mining industry, pillaring means removal, as completely as is practical, of all pillars formed in the development of headings and rooms on first mining. The degree to which this can be accomplished, termed percent of recovery, is of course dependent generally upon the physical conditions of the bottom and the overburden, the system of min-

Jan 2, 1955

By Robert H. Weber

Increasing acceptance of perlite products, chiefly in the fields of lightweight structural aggregates and thermal and acoustic insulation, has led to expanding market demands that have encouraged many new producers to enter the field. In some instances, however, the failure of these producers to anticipate the variable response of perlite to conventional processing methods has led to difficulty in establishing an economical flowsheet by which a predictable specification product could be obtained. It is not the writer's intent to provide a solution to these problems, but rather to summarize their nature. It is to be hoped that members of the industry who have hurdled some of these obstacles will document solutions arising from their experience.

Jan 2, 1955

By A. C. Dorenfeld

In most mineral enterprises, what is the progress, and shift in responsibilities, as the young engineer advances in the corporation? You are all familiar with the normal pattern-in mine production from level boss, to shift boss, to superintendent to manager; in milling from test engineer, to shift boss, to foreman, to superintendent and then manager; in engineering from surveying on to Chief Engineer; and all then aspire to the corporation presidency. Note the shift-from purely technical jobs, say in the first five to ten years in the profession, to administrative positions for 30 to 40 years. What is the average preparation given to mineral engineering students, who can look forward to about 30 years of administrative work? From the catalogs of 21 institutions, offering 36 curricula of four years length, in mining and/or metallurgy, requiring the equivalent of about 150 to 160 semesterhours for graduation, the following results were obtained: Average number of semester hours of economics, 3 hr. Range of requirements, 0 to 8 hr. Thirteen curricula do not require any economics. Accounting and business law, average: 1 semester hr, 26 curricula do not require business law or accounting.

Jan 2, 1955

By Wilbur T. Stuart

To assist the mining industry in attacking problems of water control, the U. S. Geological Survey has begun a program of research in mining hydrology. In certain fundamental respects water control is similar to development of water supplies from wells or to the drainage of agricultural lands, as many of the tools developed in recent years for quantitative ground-water problems are applicable, with modification, to mine-water problems. In 1952 a 30-day pumping test conducted jointly by the Eureka Corp. Ltd. and the Defense Minerals Exploration Agency provided an opportunity to gain knowledge concerning water movements around a flooded mine shaft. The methods of analyzing the data may be used as a guide for the evaluation of similar problems elsewhere.

Jan 2, 1955

By Rollyn P. Jacobson

The town of Pacific, in Jefferson County, Mo., is 27 miles west of St. Louis. Since the area lies entirely on the flood plain of a cut-off meander of the Meramac River, it was considered a likely environment for accumulation of commercial quantities of sand and gravel. Excellent transportation facilities are afforded by two major railways to St. Louis, and ample water supply for washing and separation is assured by the proximity of the river. As a large washing and separation plant was planned, the property was evaluated in detail to justify the high initial expenditure. An intensive testing program using both geophysical and drilling methods was designed and carried out. The prospect was surveyed topographically and a 200-ft grid staked on which electrical resistivity depth profiles were observed at 130 points. The Wenner 4-electrode configuration and earth resistivity apparatus* were used. In all but a few cases, the electrode spacing, A, was increased in increments of 1% ft to a spread of 30 ft and in increments of 3 ft thereafter.

Jan 2, 1955

By Oliver S. North

Reserves of perlite rock in the western section of the United States are immense. A geological report prepared for the Union Pacific RR showed proved tonnage of over 400 million tons in southern Nevada alone. Yet the perlite industry is not large, and most of the mines are relatively small. There are indications that perlite processing, thus far largely in the hands of relatively small com¬panies, is becoming concentrated in a few large companies. For economic reasons the bulk of perlite sold in crude form has come from three or four pro¬ducers, although many individual operators have sold small quantities to limited lists of purchasers. Perlite is one of ultra-lightweight aggregates. Owing to its outstanding qualities as an aggregate, variety of uses, and ultimate economy of use, it has enjoyed considerable popularity in this country in recent years. Marked foreign interest also has been evinced in this material.

Jan 2, 1955

By William E. Messner

California’s Monterey Peninsula, noted for its beaches, resort hotels, and beautiful homes, also harbors a pioneering beneficiation operation. Here for more than 35 years the Del Monte Properties Co. has provided sand products from large dunes, some over 300 ft high, located in the Del Monte Forest. Raw material-the dunes derived by wave action from Santa Lucia granite of Jurassic age-has unusually consistent chemical and physical composition. Coarse crystalline feldspar is the principal constituent, followed in abundance by quartz, with some biotite, ilmenite, garnet, zircon, and monazite.

Jan 2, 1955

By Rudolph G. Wuerker

The scarcity of values of tensile strength of rocks has been explained by the lack of successful testing procedures. In the case of mine rock a description is given' of the difficulties encountered in testing a cylindrical specimen, such as a core, by conventional methods. Over a period of years the following method has given definite and reproducible results with the weakest as well as with the strongest rocks. It does not completely supersede the use of cores with special fixtures but is a supplement in all cases where cores cannot be obtained, as from soft rocks, or in cases where it is less expensive to prepare test specimens by cutting them out of the rock instead of drilling cores.

Jan 2, 1955

By Thomas W. Mitcham

NUMEROUS ore deposits remain to be discovered. Many exposures of favorable host rock bodies within mineral provinces have not been adequately scrutinized geologically-the ore potential in buried portions of such rock bodies is enormous. Inasmuch as the more obvious deposits have been found, exploration has become more scientific and more expensive. Yet discovery continues to be very rewarding if exploration is intelligently approached. Although a number of exceptions can be cited, systematic geological exploration for ore on a significant scale has developed during the last two decades. So rapid has been the development of systematic exploration that a comparison of modern programs with those as recent as 1940, would suggest that many large mining companies and various Government agencies were hardly in the exploration business at that time. What is modern ore exploration? What major factors affect its success-economic discovery?

Jan 2, 1955

By Rixford A. Beals

It has been observed with considerable accuracy that if the major U. S. mines were moved to Mexico tomorrow, many of them would be losing money. But the companies would continue to operate, losses or not, because they would have to. And some of the newest and most promising low grade ore projects in the U. S. would never have "gotten off the ground" had they faced the equivalent of the mining taxes now in effect in Mexico. No one of the various mining taxes in Mexico seems prohibitive by itself. Taken together, on the balance sheet, however, the picture changes. Production and export taxes alone take from 20 to 40 pct of the gross product value for base and precious metals.

Jan 2, 1955

By O. W. Walvoord

A Definition: An ore feeder is a mechanical device that, by virtue of its motion, causes ore to be supplied or carried forward at a desired metered rate to other milling equipment. From the viewpoint of economics there can be little question, even for small tonnage operations, as to the advisability of using mechanical feeders in the place of manual labor. Only a few short years ago, it was common practice to employ crusher men for the feeding of crushers, thus eliminating the capital expenditures required for mechanical feeding equipment. Having been a crusher man in several instances, the author does not favor such practice. The high cost of labor today eliminates the crusher man, and feeders become an economical capital expenditure when considered against the importance of obtaining maximum production efficiency from all the machines in a process flowsheet.

Jan 2, 1955

By A. N. Winsor

Increased use of private aircraft in civil engineering, mining, forestry, and other land-use activities creates an opportunity for amateur aerial photography. Taking a photograph having less than 5° tilt requires precision equipment and skilled personnel, while controlled horizontal photography is primarily a terrestrial method that has passed to the limbo of forgotten things. But the remaining possibility – oblique aerial photography – can be…

Jan 2, 1955