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By O. K. Mahabadi

The scope of this study is to simulate the behaviour of a layered rock sample under standard laboratory Brazilian Disc test using an innovative combined finite-discrete element method (FEM/DEM) research code. The influence of layering and the direction of loading on the samples behaviour are studied through various layering and loading configurations. A parametric study including the effect of loading rate on the tensile strength of samples has been carried out. This paper demonstrates the suitability of the numerical approach to explicitly model rock deformation and failure.

May 1, 2009

By C. J. Wilhelm

Brine produced from subsurface formations may be employed successfully instead of fresh water as a flooding, medium in the secondary recovery of oil. The feasibility of this substitution has been proved in the shallow "shoestring" area of eastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma, where the supply of fresh water often is limited. In this procedure all brine produced with the oil is returned to the formation and thus is prevented from contaminating streams and fresh-water supplies. This report includes a detailed description of a "flood project" in eastern Kansas studied by the Bureau of Mines. In an attempt to determine whether brine, when handled properly, can be used as effectively as fresh water in flooding oil from partly depleted formations, an analysis was made of all known conditions that influence flooding.

Jan 1, 1941

By John H. Hild

This is a report on work done and results obtained in a minerals exploration program conducted by the Bureau of Mines on the lead-zinc deposits in the Ross Basin-Lake Como district, San Juan County, Colo., in 1948, 1949, and 1950. Four large veins--the Seven Thirty, Red Rogers, Cashier-Shorts top-Canandaigua, and Queen Anne--and several narrow spur veins were explored at relatively shallow depths with core-drill holes. Thirty-nine holes, totaling 10,491.5 feet, were drilled, and the core samples were assayed at the Bureau of Mines station at Salt Lake City, Utah.

Jan 1, 1959

By Albert L. Toenges

The fuel requirements for industrial and domestic consumers in New England, in normal times, are supplied almost entirely by fuel oil, anthracite, and bituminous coal. A shortage of these fuels occurred during the war. This shortage was caused by: (1) The diversion of oil to military uses; (2) the use of railroad and boat facilities that ordinarily would transport coal for the transportation of war material; (3) the inability of coal mines to apply the increased demand for coal which resulted from the conversion from oil to coal by domestic and industrial consumers; and (4) the increased demand of war industries for coal. Because of this Critical fuel situation, an investigation was made of possible sources of fuel nearer to points of consumption in New England.

Jan 1, 1948

By Keila Gonçalves, Aline Tavares, Danielly Couto

"The sulphide copper deposits from the Carajás area (North region of Brazil) were generated by the percolation of hydrothermal fluids in volcanic and granitic rock and are denominated as IOCG deposits (iron oxide copper-gold deposits). During these hydrothermal events a wide variety of gangue minerals such as amphiboles, biotite and fluorite were formed. These gangue minerals are enriched in fluorine and chlorine which are deleterious elements in the copper concentrate. Chalcopyrite and bornite are the main copper-bearing minerals and they can occur in veins, in brecchia or disseminated in gangue.The study, which included bench scale flotation tests and minipilot plant tests was aimed at improving the fluorine rejection in the flotation process during the flowsheet design for one of these Carajás sulphide copper deposit. All of the study was supported by quantitative mineralogical techniques such as QEMSCAN and the use of a scanning electron microscope (SEM).This paper describes and discusses the results obtained in the metallurgical tests and emphasizes the importance of the quantitative mineralogical characterization during the process conditions optimization and flowsheet design.INTRODUCTIONIron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) deposits encompass a wide spectrum of sulphide-deficient low-Ti magnetite and/or hematite ore bodies of hydrothermal origin and normally have important copper sulphide reserves. In the Carajás mineral province, located at the southeast part of the Amazon Craton in Pará State (Brazil), there is a variety of world-class (>200 million tonnes) Fe-oxide Cu-Au deposits (e.g. Salobo, Cristalino and Sossego), whose genesis has been assigned to hydrothermal fluid percolation in volcanic and granitic rocks. Figure 1 displays the location of the Carajás area.The hydrothermal thermal fluid composition was extremely variable. It may have contained gases, salts (brine) and metals. The metals were carried as various complexes and it is thought to have involved sulphur, chlorine and fluorine containing species. This resulted in some minerals formed during the hydrothermal alteration having high fluorine and chlorine contents. These elements result in smelter penalties in a copper concentrate because they cause the smelter off-gases to be more corrosive."

Jan 1, 2011

By Donald O. Capstick

The local geology, the lack of recorded mining activity, and our field investigation and associated sampling indicate a low potential for mineral resources. Claim records and the literature review failed to show any lode or heavy mineral placer mining claim locations that are definitely in the area or anomalous mineral concentrations in the study area. Field investigations revealed no claims, prospects, or mineralized areas.

Jan 1, 1982

M.S. Azun I have many objections to the content of the author's paper. Before discussing it, however, I would like to repeat the property of semivariogram function. Second order stationary properties of regionalized variables (ReV's) such as semivariogram function y(h) are perfectly known in geostatistics. Also, the kriging equations in the language of mathematical statistics using second order stationary properties are well understood. However, the way to use the sample (estimated) semivariogram function in any one of the kriging procedures is vague. The sample semivariogram function is given as follows: [ ] where N is the total number of samples, Xi is the sample value at the i - th location, Xi+h is the sample value at the i + h - th location, and h is the distance among the samples. An estimation variance of sample semivariogram function of first lag is smaller than that of higher order lag. The theoretical semivariogram function reaches the variance of samples asymptotically. But this is not easily observable because of the larger variation involved in the estimate of semivariogram function. In general, an estimation procedure is done for h = 0, 1, 2, up to the greatest integer less than N/2, even though sample semivariogram function can be computable through N-1. After estimating semivariogram function, the critical question of how to model sample semivariogram function arises. As seen in the above equation, sample semivariogram function is discrete and can be smoothed by the model being selected. Therefore, modeling of sample semivariogram function is the most important step in geostatistics. It not only smoothes a discrete function but also affects the results of the kriging procedure. When the only aim is to model the semivariogram function, which is the basic point of the author's paper, one can employ any fitting techniques, such as curve fitting, or any arbitrary functions, which are called submodels in the paper. The term "arbitrary function" is used rather than "submodel" because there is no basic understanding of developing them. The author suggests that the sum of those submodels can also be used for the modeling of sample semivariogram function. The combination of any arbitrary functions brings many problems instead of giving an insight of the domain structure considered. The author used two arbitrary functions and the nugget effect in response to sample semivariogram function (Fig. 10). For the same example, he stated that the parameters involved in the mixed arbitrary function model can be accepted when the discrepancy between sample semivariogram function and the model is small visually. For verifying the fitting behavior of any selected model, one should not be contented with the visual satisfactory. Some statistical measure such as goodness of fit has to be used. The author's practice is no more than an exercise in curve fitting without any fundamental understanding or conceptualization of the underlying physical mechanism. Furthermore, the selection of any model is not an easy task if the purpose is the search for the "best" response to the observed second order properties of ReV's. I suggest that the Markovian model (Azun, 1983), on the basis of a theoretical understanding of underlying mechanism, which gives more information about the occurrence of regionalized variables, is used to respond all properties of ReV's. There are a lot of problems for modeling of one-dimensional sample semivariogram function. Thus, it is not appropriate to go to higher order dimensional sample semivariogram function modeling. In the meantime, I would recommend that one can connect the values of standardized sample semivariogram function rather than simple values of semivariogram function in the two-dimensional estimation. The standardized values can be computed in dividing the semivariogram function value by the number of sample pairs involved in each lag regardless of the directions. In conclusion, geostatistics is an interdisciplinary area in mining that uses the principles of mathematical statistics. Thus, it should not violate any probabilistic and statistical rules. When Matheron was developing the theory of geostatistical study in the early years of geostatistics, many mining people had a reservation accepting the geostatistical tools. However, this does not mean that we, the geostatisticians, might try to convince those people using some "strange" tools or rules as some authors implied (Baafi and Kim, 1984). Instead, we have to develop and explain the geostatistical tools staying only in the framework of statistical concepts and properties. References Azun, M.S., 1983, "Stochastic Process Modeling of Spatially Distributed Geostatistical Data," Columbia University, Ph.D. Thesis. Baafi, E.Y., and Kim, Y.C., 1984, "Discussion - Comparison of Different Ore Reserve Estimation Methods Using Conditional Simulation," Mining Engineering, Vol. 36, No. 3, p. 280. Reply by J.M. Rendu The interactive method proposed by Rendu allows practitioners to develop semivariogram models that take into account not only the numerical information obtained by sampling, but also highly significant additional information that often cannot be quantified. The geology of the deposit - including hypotheses concerning its genesis, sampling methods, assaying methods, and mathematical methods used to calculate the semivariograms - all have an influence on the numerical results obtained and on how these results should be interpreted. If all the information concerning the spatial distribution of values in a mineral deposit was contained in the sample values, it could be argued that statistical techniques alone would produce optimum models. However, this is rarely, if ever, the case. Methods that allow the user to take into account his experience and his geologic understanding of the deposit should not be rejected for the sake of theoretical statistical purity.

Jan 11, 1985

By Terry S. Cory

This report describes the results of a measurement program to determine the broad spectral characteristics of both differential and common mode noise on phone lines in three coal mines; and, signal attenuation spectral characteristics on the same broad basis over phone line strings with taps/branches. The frequency range used was baseband -1000 Hz for resolution bandwidth ranging from 100 Hz near baseband to 30 KHz near I MHz. The signal attenuation measurements were performed on all three "legs" of taps where possible and applicable. Results were obtained comparing shielded and unshielded phone lines In one mine. The results include an improved electromagnetic noise chart for coal mines showing variations with types of mines, topology, and location of noise sources; also, fundamental high-frequency limit on untreated phone lines in coal mines is identified

Jan 1, 1981

By L. D. Gent

This report reviews the current state of the art of remote control techniques for underground continuous miners. A delineation of aspects requiring additional data is presented. Also a summary and delineation are presented in overview form for the related section functions: roof control, haulage, ventilation, power supply and rock dusting. The automated remotely controlled continuous miner project is a long-range research effort. However, the program has been divided into intermediate steps resulting in incremental production increases throughout the program. Data are developed relating the impact of our proposed research and development accomplishments to potential productivity impact.

Jan 1, 1975

By Ross W. Smith

Microflotation and surface chemical studies were conducted on a chromite from the Stillwater Complex in Montana and on some of the minerals usually found to be associated with such chromites. Considering the chromite it was found that aging the ground mineral in air or heating it markedly affected its flotation behavior. Much of the observed effects could be attributed to oxidation reactions involving surface chromium and iron species. Strongly acid pretreating the mineral appeared to reverse such effects. Thus, it can be concluded that the manner in which the mineral (or the ore) is pretreated is of utmost importance in its flotation. Work carried out on associated gangue minerals determined how they are likely to behave in a flotation environment and how certain foreign ions derived from a chromite ore itself can affect their surface characteristics and, thus, presumably also their behavior in a flotation circuit.

Jan 1, 1981

By Paul L. Michael

Roof warring signals from eleven underground coal mines (principally in the Pittsburgh seam) were studied and analyzed. The character of individual acoustic warning signals is shown to be dependent on spectral distribution of energy. Reverberation tires (pulse decay rates) were found to be usually between 0.1 and 0.5 seconds. Listening tests were conducted to assess the miner's ability to discriminate speech and roof talk signals in noise and in quiet, with and without ear protectors and with various levels of hearing loss. The ability to detect roof talk is shown to be generally degraded while wearing car protection in quiet, although, if car protectors are worn only when required by high noise levels, the ability to detect roof talk will be preserved at its maximum.

Jan 1, 1972

During the period 1979 thru 1982, Multi Mineral Corporation conducted a mining research program at the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Mines Oil Shale Mining Environmental Research Facility in the Central Piceance Creek Basin, Rio Blanco County, Colorado. The program consisted of mining, environmental and geotechnical research data and. the results are described in this report.

Jan 1, 1983

By O. C. Blade

Studies on more efficient utilization of petroleum have been made for 50 years by the Bureau of Mines. As part of this work, the Bureau has analyzed thousands of samples of crude oil by its standardized routine method, and many of these analyses have been published, sometimes in special compilations, other times in connection with reports of research on petroleum. This report is a finding index for all analyses published from 1921 to 1959, and brings up to date the information in Information Circular 7470 3 and in the appendix of Bulletin 490.4 The routine method of analysis and the equipment originally were described in a report by Dean and associates. 5 This report has long been out of print, but Bulletin 490, bringing the procedure and its modifications to date, was published in 1951. 6 Briefly, the procedure consists of testing, by standard methods, small samples of a crude oil for gravity, sulfur, color, viscosity, pour point, and (more recently) nitrogen; and, by a standardized procedure, distilling a portion of the crude oil and determining certain properties on the separated fractions and residuum. Careful records are made during the procedure, and the distillation data obtained are used to compute the approximate amounts of products present in the sample--such as percentages of gasoline, kerosine, gas oil, and lubricants. The principal data and results are recorded on a standard analytical report form. An analysis of a sample of crude oil from a recently developed field is shown in table 1. Compilations of these analyses, sometimes in tabular form and usually for specific geographic areas, are published from time to time. Analyses often are included in connection with other studies, such as engineering field reports.

Jan 1, 1959

By Hiroshi Yamazaki

The paper describes prediction, control and validation of face pressures, and special TBM features for the bored tunnels of the New Metro Rail City Project, Perth, Australia. The selected EPB-TBM passed below a heritage bridge and the operational Perth Railway station in ground conditions consisting of fully saturated uniform sand combined with shallow overburden and a horizontal alignment radius of only 135m. Therefore, strict control of volume loss, TBM operations and ground movements was vital requiring continuous evaluation and adjustments to TBM operation parameters. The paper discusses the effectiveness of applied TBM face pressures and the used foam/polymer soil conditioning which was measured against achieved volume loss and the predicted range of ground settlements.

By Richard C. Rice

Laboratory and field data for wire ropes typical of constructions used in underground mine hoisting were obtained, screened, encoded and analyzed statistically. The statistical analysis of data for hoist ropes retired from service showed that rope remaining strength (or, conversely, strength loss) can be predicted with good accuracy if several nondestructive measures of rope damage are assessed. Found to be most important was the outer-wire corrosion rating, the electromagnetic (EM) nondestructive-inspection technique used for predicting strength loss, and the rope diameter reduction. Signs of rope deterioration such as broken wires or damage were also important indicators of strength loss. Based on the results of this investigation, a number of recommendations are presented that promise to yield better rope inspection and retirement criteria which will in turn lead to improved safety and efficiency in underground mine-hoist systems.

Jan 1, 1983

By W. Barnett

The Limpopo Metamorphic Belt is a complex geological terrane with at least three major deformational events. Tectonically juxtaposed lithology, open to isoclinal folding, crosscutting and re-activated shear zones and metamorphic gneisses and schists make pit slope design and maintenance a risky business. Venetia diamond mine?s Cut 3 is planned to reach 360 m by 2011. The difficult rockmass created problems in the original pit and a new more comprehensive slope design was necessary. Nearly 9 km of geotechnical drilling were undertaken to produce a new geological model and provide geotechnical information near the final Cut 3 face. All existing data from the pit were brought together into a database. SRK Consulting were brought into the project to audit the process and provide most of the manpower for the data analysis. Existing failures were back-analysed and the geotechnical domains identified. Analyses of only the southern domains are discussed in this paper. Geotechnical engineers can design slopes at any angle, but it is up to the managers at the mine to decide what risk they are willing to accept in a slope design. Once the issue of risk was discussed and settled in respect of the consequences of failure, each of the main geotechnical domains were analysed to produce a slope design at5% probability of failure with 15% above the first ramp. A risk assessment of the design was then undertaken to determine what risk the design placed on the equipment, personnel and the profitability of the overall mining operation. The risk assessment indicated minimal risk to the operation. One of the main assumptions of the final design is that the pit slopes will be dewatered. A project was immediately put in place to determine a groundwater model for the mine and to thereby determine the best dewatering procedure. However, it should be obvious that it is practically impossible to prevent benches from getting briefly saturated with water during storm conditions. It was therefore necessary to look specifically at supporting the crests of the ramps in the problematic southern domains to guard against the possibility of crest failure during heavy rains. The data available were re-analysed toward this objective. Spiles were recommended as the most cost-effective support system, and a probabilistic approach was used in the design. The final design has a 5% probability of failure, and the analyses indicate a strong sensitivity of the required spile spacing to the strength of the reinforcement material that will eventually be used. The pit slope parameters derived as per the discussion in this paper have just begun to be implemented at Venetia Mine.

Jan 1, 2001

By Michael Rieber

Commodity transportation by barge is possible on about 25,000 miles of navigable inland waterways in the contiguous 48 states. Barge operations are used chiefly for the movement of bulk raw materials ranging from farm products to iron ore, coal, and other bulky semi-finished as well as finished products such as steel, chemicals and petroleum [3,p.7-9]. The barge industry, unlike other transportation industries, is largely unregulated. This is because all liquid bulk commodities most dry bulk commodities transported by for-hire carriers and companies engaged in private transportation of their own commodities are exempted from Interstate Commerce Commission regulations. As a result, about 15 percent of the total ton-miles of barge traffic each year is under Interstate Commerce Commission regulation [13,p.14-25].

Jan 1, 1977

Enhancing the Flotability of Gold-Bearing Ores by a Mixture of Collectors

Sep 13, 2010

By Murad Y. Abu-Farsakh

This paper presents the analyses of load-transfer (t-z) behavior of twelve prestressed concrete (PSC) instrumented test piles that were driven in different locations of Louisiana. The load transfer method is an efficient and practical tool for the analysis of single driven pile to predict the ultimate load. The test piles were instrumented with vibrating wire strain gauges in order to calculate the shear transfer for different soil layers during the static load test. The static load test was performed on all the test piles after 10 to 14 days of end of driving. Empirical load-transfer models were proposed previously by different researchers (Fleming 1992, Hirayama 1990, Krasinski 2012, Bohn et al. 2017) after analyzing the instrumented test pile results. For this study, load transfer of each soil layer was measured and compared with the previously developed existing model. The stiffness parameter (M) for the hyperbolic equation was calibrated in order to best match the measurements. The good agreement of the proposed curves was then confirmed by applying them to assess the overall load-settlement curve of other pile load test results available in the literature. INTRODUCTION The load transfer mechanism (stress-strain relationship) for an axially loaded pile usually comprises of three loading mechanisms: axial deformation in the pile (z), soil skin friction along the shaft (qs), and soil end-bearing (qb). The development of soil skin friction with axial deformation is referred as the t-z curve, and the development of soil end-bearing with axial deformation is referred as the q-z curve. Figure 1 presents the load transfer mechanisms in an axially loaded pile and the corresponding spring mass models for t-z and q-z curves (API, 2002). In order to construct the load transfer curve in clay under vertical load, the axial load transfer (t-z) curve and end-bearing load transfer (q-z) for that particular soil should be assessed separately. The axial load transfer (t-z) method is probably the most widely used technique to study the problem of single axially loaded piles. Therefore, the load transfer through the shaft of the pile and are getting more and more important compared to the only the pile capacity analyses. The load transferred from shaft to the surrounding clay soil is a function of the width of the pile and the surface roughness of the pile and clay properties. The development of a representative procedure allows the assessment of the t-z curve in soil (sand and/or clay) that leads to the prediction of a nonlinear vertical load-settlement response at the pile head.

Jan 1, 2018

By T. Nyabeze

This paper presents the experiences and views of women involved in the mining industry as determined from a questionnaire that was circulated across the Canadian mining industry. Globally, there have been significant studies done to understand the historic and global variety of women?s participation in this industry1. The reason for focusing on women?s experiences here in Canada is because women?s percentage representation at 14.4% in the mineral industry workforce falls below the overall labour force average of 47.4%2. Notably, a recent article in the Globe and Mail newspaper points out that adequate representation of women in leading of organizations is more of a matter of competitiveness and innovation rather than purely a ?women?s issue?3. This paper will provide some insight into the reasons why women join and stay in the mining industry and shed some light into the reasons for the overall low representation in this sector. The authors believe, as stated in a study from the London Business School, that a gender-balanced workforce is one way of providing the best results in areas that drive innovation4. Women represent a key stakeholder group that can help enhance the mining industry?s sustainability through innovation. The women who responded to the questionnaire represent many different areas within the mining industry, including a broad range of roles in industry, government, academia and in the supplies and services sector. The paper is intended to raise awareness about issues that women encounter that contribute or detract from career satisfaction in the mining industry. The survey provides an overall understanding of why women pursue or work in mining, and why women either remain or choose to leave it. The advantages and disadvantages experienced by women are highlighted, along with a summary of the possible initiatives that could be undertaken by employers as opportunities to improve the attraction of the mining industry for career minded women. As well, the survey provides a summary of the top ten features that are already in place at various organizations and community groups that have been identified as key for supporting and encouraging women to join and remain in the industry. Not surprisingly, the survey identifies that one of the key ingredients for retention of women in mining is the provision of mentors and sponsors. Another key aspect for retention is the provision of progressive employment policies that address the need for a degree of flexibility in work hours and a culture of balance between work and personal life demands. The survey and results are portrayed only from a female perspective since it is largely women?s perceptions that will inevitably be transmitted to others who plan on entering the field.

Oct 1, 2010