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By John A. Rajala

The water chemistry of the froth flotation pulp is one of many parameters which can affect the flotation process. The fluid may contain certain inorganic salts which, along with increased ionic strength, can produce undesirable flotation depression or activation. A source of a salt could be the use of calcium chloride to prevent freezing in ore cars, chutes, and bins (Anon., 1980). Alternately, the salt or salts could be initially contained in the water as in the case of sea water and some brackish waters. These salts may become more concentrated because of the need for recycling of plant water due to environmental regulations and/or economic considerations (Davis, F.T., et. al., 1976). The presence of inorganic salts in flotation pulps and their effects upon the recoveries and surface chemistries of different oxide minerals have been the object of various studies. Some researchers (Fuerstenau, D. W. and Raghavan, 1976; Fuerstenau, D. W. and Modi, H. J. 1960; Kulkarni, R. D. and Somasundaran, P., 1977) have reported that addition of a salt can increase or decrease flotation recovery depending upon the particular system.

Jan 1, 1982

By Tim C. Webb

For almost 350 years, industrial rocks and minerals have been produced, used locally and exported from New Brunswick to markets throughout the world. Up until the early 1960s, commodities like grindstone, building stone, gypsum, and limestone served as the foundation of the province's non-fuel mining industry. The importance and high level of activity surrounding industrial rock and mineral development in New Brunswick is reflected in a multimillion dollar industry generating substantial revenue and providing a valuable service to its people. New Brunswick's varied geology is reflected not only by the diversity of industrial rock and mineral resources presently under development but also in several promising exploration and potential development opportunities. The province also hosts several industrial rock and mineral processing facilities, each with established technologies ensuring high-quality products and each with sufficient flexibility to supply customized products for various specialized niche markets. With the imminent availability of natural gas to parts of the province, the prospects for additional value-added processing and re-examination of known, yet presently undeveloped deposits, appear excellent. These variables coupled with the province's advantageous geographical location, highlighting tidewater access to global markets and within one day's trucking distance to a regional market of several million people, guarantee prompt delivery of high-quality products at competitive prices.

Jan 1, 2001

By W. B. Gallup

"The Athabasca Bituminous Sands have been subject to sporadic investigations since the beginning of the century. It is probable, however, that much of what has been learned and achieved concerning the deposit has been accomplished in the last few years.Current exploratory techniques, generally speaking, involve a moderate amount of coring. Electrologs and often radioactive logs are run on most holes and certain types of these archieved excellent qualitative analysis when backed up by some core analysis for calibration. Exploration - is moving back from the river and consequently a permanent network of access roads has been developed within the last few years. Most of the operations take place in the winter time. There are about 90 permit holders at the present time.Some exploratory techniques are set up to go into recovery experiments where rich tar beds are found. It is probable that in the final analysis there will be several successful methods of extraction and that both mining and various in situ techniques will be applicable depending upon the problem locally."

Jan 1, 1960

By F. S. Crawford

Although it may be impracticable to adopt standard methods of safe working in all branches of mining, and although it may be impossible to establish a standard for each class of work at each mine, some of the iron-mining companies in the Lake Superior district have found that by adopting certain standard ways of performing certain of their operations they insure both more efficient and safer working conditions. Many companies have adopted the idea that the safe way of doing things is also the most efficient and economical way, and, through the medium of their safety conferences they are trying to find the safest way, and the most efficient way, of performing practically every operation about the mines. This activity will, undoubtedly, be continued at every operation which uses this method of doing safety work, because in the advance of industry changes must be made in the results required from time to time. A review of the safety standards and safety suggestions which have been arrived at by some of the companies in this the greatest iron-mining district in the world, will be of value to companies who are interested in improving the safety of their working conditions. So that attention may be directed to the methods in use, rather than to individual companies, all names have been omitted and companies are referred to only by letter.

Aug 1, 1931

By D. Weijie, S. Kai, Y. Hu, X. Ning, M. Shiyi, W. Junpeng, Z. Guihong, L. Xianjie

Flotation is one of the most important processes in the copper production industry. The copper grade in the concentrate is a pivotal indicator of the flotation process performance. However, it is difficult to achieve real-time measurement through hardware sensors. Based on the production data provided by an industrial operation, a novel soft sensor based on multi-layer perceptron (MLP) is proposed for effective monitoring of this pivotal indicator. The proposed soft sensor uses the nonnegative garrote (NNG) to perform global variable selection for MLP, while a local search (LS) approach is incorporated to improve the model presented by NNG. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm has higher prediction accuracy and better model simplicity than other algorithms. Furthermore, the variables selected are consistent with the field experience, and the developed model can provide reference of feedback control for the optimisation of the process. Keywords: Flotation process of copper ore, nonnegative garrote, local search, soft sensor, multi-layer perceptron

Jan 1, 2020

By Michael L. Clar

Reclamation of surface mined lands has two basic objectives: (1) the elimination or abatement of undesirable environmental conditions, and (2) the restoration of mined land to its former or more productive uses. This paper addresses some of the planning concepts and site factors that influence the selection of suitable land uses for surface mined lands. Three planning concepts included in the discussion are: (1) mine land planning, (2) comprehensive land use planning, and (3) environmental site planning. The site factors that will influence the selection of an appropriate land use have been grouped into three categories: (1) legal, (2) geographic, and (3) natural. The natural factors are further subdivided into three groupings: geomorphology, soils, and climate.

Jan 1, 1981

By S. Schutte, J. Pelders, F. Magweregwede, S. Ngobese, W. Botha

A people-centric, systematic approach that involves different stakeholders is considered necessary to successfully address changes associated with modernizing the South African mining industry. In this paper we discuss the inclusion of various South African mining industry stakeholders, particularly the employees, in equipment design and development processes. Data was acquired through a literature review and inputs from South African mining industry stakeholders through focus group discussions, interviews, and an online survey. It was suggested that some of the areas that could be improved by the inclusion of employees in the process are design quality, ergonomics, equipment acceptance by the workforce, safety, efficiency, skills, insight into context of use, and early design iterations and identification of problems. Among the issues considered to be barriers to inclusion were lack of buy-in, lack of resources, difficulty in manufacturers accessing the mines, difficulties in involving too many people, intellectual property concerns, and unavailability of mine employees due to their key responsibilities. Identified critical factors in the equipment design and development process include iterative design, stakeholder participation throughout the process, needs analysis through consultation, and change management. A guideline was developed for worker inclusion in equipment design and development that could be used by the South African mining industry. The study identified several economic and social benefits of including stakeholders in the early stages of design and development. It is recommended that the South African mining industry considers using the developed guideline.

Apr 5, 2023

By J. R. Brett

Utah Development Company (UDC) operates five large opencut coal mines in the Bowen Basin of Central Queensland, Australia. In total, over 20 million tonnes of coking coal are exported annually from the five mines. Typically, the coal seams dip at 5 percent, are 2 to 10 metres thick, and sub-crop some 20 to 40 metres below surface. In the main, the operations are single seam, but multiseam (2, 3 or 4 seams) operations do exist and will form an increasing proportion of the mining activities as depths increase. Draglines are used as the major stripping equipment, highwall depths currently ranging from 20 to 65 metres. Whilst project feasibilities were based on stripping to a 60 metre highwall, it is now proposed to continue opencut mining to depths exceeding 100 metres. This will entail large quantities of prestripping (ahead of the draglines) and overcoming problems associated with steepening seam dips, including haulage of coal from the pits.

Jan 1, 1982

By D. K. MACKAY

The production of oil and gas in Arkansas is confined to two distinct and widely separated regions of the state; namely: (1) South Arkansas in the Gulf coastal plain, where 49 fields-many containing two or more reservoirs or pools-yield oil, condensate and gas from beds in the Cretaceous and Jurassic, and (2) Northwest Arkansas, a part of the Arkansas Valley, where only dry gas is produced in 21 fields from sandstones of Pennsylvanian age. Exploration during the year 1945 centered largely in these two producing regions, but some of the geophysical surveys were made and wildcat drilling was done a considerable distance outside these regions.

Jan 1, 1946

By William Reisz

Managing the blast site at almost any operation can be a daunting task. There are so many details that must be observed, understood, and acted upon. It goes without saying that there are no two locations that have the exact same challenges and concerns. The level and the extent of these challenges can vary widely.

Jan 1, 2014

By A. E. Cameron

MR. N. T. AVARD : I would like to congratulate Dr. Cameron on his presentation of some pertinent facts about the Coal Resources of Nova Scotia. There is no question but what there is something very definitely wrong about the coal mining situation in this Province. These are times when we can with profit look facts in the face and attempt to solve some riddles. Perhaps now is the time when we can bring some of these coal mining facts into the open and look them over. Co-operatively, we might evolve some helpful solutions. However, I would like, first, to make some specific reference to the Joggins coal field, not as a mining expert, but rather as an executive who has evolved some ideas after some years of practical contact with this field. Dr. Cameron states that existing operations in this area will probably continue for a few years. As a matter of fact, under normal conditions, these mines are good for another twelve years. With the installation of more powerful equipment for hoisting, pumping, and ventilation, an additional five years could be counted on. With one exception, that pretty well clears up mining from the outcrop, hitherto the only method of approach in this field. The chief reason for this present limitation is prolific 'bootlegging' operations. It is too bad that these should have been permitted to ruin a valuable coal field. Moreover, I am cold by competent authorities that this need not have been so. At one time shortly before war broke out there were 74 bootleg operations within an area of one square mile around Joggins. However, despite the fact that these operations were illegal, I could not find any means of stopping then and I believe the same conditions existed in many other coal areas in the Province. For some reason, the eyes of the law were closed. The result is that many outcrop possibilities have been permanently ruined. The exception noted in the so-called Queen seam, which has definite possibilities for approach through the outcrop. This is probably the best coal in the district.

Jan 1, 1944

By Gary A. Kingston

Chromium resources in the United States are estimated at 1.8 million tons of recoverable chromium contained in 22.5 million tons of chromite-bearing material. Additional resource is presumed existent in large, but as yet undetermined, quantities of material containing less than 10 percent Cr203. No domestic resources are being mined presently (1969). Excluding transportation charges to domestic consuming areas, the total 1.8 million tons of chromim is estimated to be available, in ore or concentrate, at costs up to $0.64 per pound; 63 percent of the total is available under $0.11 per pound; and 38 percent under $0.08 per pound. It is judged that transportation from the resource areas to the existing market centers would add nearly $0.05 to the cost of a pound of chromium contained in ore or concentrate. Technically effective beneficiation methods have been developed for much of the known domestic resource, and further development might reduce costs of processing these materials. However, at present, domestic chromium resources are noncompetitive with foreign sources.

Jan 1, 1970

By Gordon T. McKenna

"Syncrude Canada Ltd. is developing new concepts in lease-closure landscape design for its Oil Sands Leases 17 and 22 in northeastern Alberta. Closure planning is becoming an integral part of the planning cycles and of the lease operation. By incorporating closure planning into the day-to-day operation, the company will achieve acceptable lease closure in an economical manner. Ultimately, Syncrude will achieve lower operating costs through innovation in mine planning and a reduction in residual liabilities.New concepts being evaluated for lease-closure landscape design include: designing for closure, use of landforms and natural analogs, self-armouring bouldery ground, robustness in design, landform grading, terrain analysis of reclaimed land, geotechnical hazard assessments, choices in closure design timeframes, passive maintenance, determining post-closure monitoring goals, engineering tailings, engineering other substrates, use of test plots and field demonstrations, geomorphologic monitoring of reclaimed lands, defining closure goals, and visiting other mines. These concepts are being formalized under the new discipline of Landscape Engineering."

Jan 1, 1996

By Peter B. Knuckey

1, Introduction Location Kalengwa mine is located in the North Western Province of Zambia, 402 kilometre by unpaved road to the west of Kitwe, which is roughly in the centre of the Zambian Copperbelt, well known as one of the world's centres of copper mining. Its position is illustrated on the map of Africa in Figure 1 and on the map of Zambia in Figure 2. It is a mine of Roan Consolidated Mines Limited whose other properties, Mufulira, Luanshya, Chambishi and Chibuluma Mines, are all located on the Copperbelt. It is managed by the Chibuluma Division of the company. The rate of production from Kalengwa will vary from 12 000 to 17 000 tonnes of saleable copper a year over the next six years. Kalengwa did not exist as a place until the first prospecting parties and later the mine became established and the early working population was recruited entirely from small villages in the surrounding area as much as thirty miles away. The mining area consists of fourteen mining locations amounting to 3.35 square kilometres and the land may be used for any purpose connected with mining, including housing, wood cutting and other utilities. The whole area is, except for minor undulations, a fairly flat plateau with main rivers running from north to south and flood basins known as "dambos" located in a general east west direction. Vegetation is, with the exception of the grassy dambos, temperate forest with relatively light undergrowth. Game of great variety is prolific, as is the associated tsetse fly.

Jan 1, 1971

By Ewan Wingate, Ranjit Prasad, Yanjun Liu

The use of phosphorus by mankind is long established. From use in agriculture, foods, high tech electronics, and more recently in EV battery cathode production, one cannot escape its impact on today’s society. This paper will review and describe the circular journey of phosphorus through its value chain from the mining operation of phosphate ore through beneficiation into downstream chemicals production and finally into the EV battery cathode production space. This will include a review of phosphoric acid production from phosphate concentrate using wet process route and thermal route. The wet process route discussed will be via dissolution of phosphate concentrate by sulphuric acid. The thermal route will discuss thermal decomposition of phosphate concentrate using submerged arc furnace to produce yellow phosphorus followed by its combustion to produce phosphorus pentoxide and subsequent hydration to produce phosphoric acid. It will also discuss briefly other phosphate derivatives for specialty chemicals and recovery of phosphorus units from wastewater treatment plants, sewage sludge and incinerator ash. Finally, the paper will discuss the use of phosphorus in EV batteries in the form LFP cathode materials and its production. It will also briefly discuss the LFP battery recycle.

Sep 11, 2023

By R. A. Burns

The production of kaolin and calcium carbonate in North America exceeds 13 million tons sold into higher value market segments. With a few exceptions, the markets supplied exhibit mature growth rates. In some market sectors, technology changes have and continue to occur shifting pigment-type consumption and growth. New sources of supply will impact current businesses. New product and process developments for kaolin and calcium carbonates are continuing. Each of these issues is examined in developing a view of the future for kaolin and calcium carbonate in North America.

Jan 1, 1997

By F. C. Araújo, T. Tavares, J. Leite

"This work presents the small-scale mining cluster of kaolin in Rio Grande do Norte (RN) and Paraiba (PB), both Brazilian states, including the following information: number of companies, process flowcharts, production numbers, mineralogical (XRD) and chemical (XRF) composition, granulometric distribution (screen and laser granulometer) and image analysis (SEM). Some social indicators in the region of the RN and PB States are presented in association with these data. The number of companies and their flowsheet were obtained through in situ visits and sample collection for technological characterization. The comparative study of the different flowsheets for kaolin production in the world was done using the databases and presenting the state of the art of kaolin processing. The results indicated that the mean feed typically contains 35-39% kaolin with quartz, muscovite and kaolinite as main mineralogical components and SiO2 (65.83%), Al2O3 (21.19%), K2O (3.9%), and Fe2O3 (0,63%) as main chemical constituents. The products of mineral processing are twofold, one between 74 µm and 37 µm, and the other smaller than 37 µm. The wastes of operation had major quantities of kaolin. The average Human Development Index (HDI) of the cluster region is approximately of 0.61, which shows an association between mineral processing plant and social indicators. The kaolin recovery, however, is between 30-55% for the three most common types of flowsheets that are currently used in the small kaolin mining cluster, indicating a need for technological improvement to achieve regional development. These data could be used incrementally to adapt the process plant currently used in the small-scale mining cluster of kaolin."

Jan 1, 2014

By Wallace W. Key

This report concerns types, quantities, specifications, and uses of non-metallic minerals as a basis for improving their supply, conservation, and utilization. Supply-demand details concerning mineral fillers, rooting granules, and roofing rock used in asphalt are incorporated in this report, along with highlights on production and sales of rooting, floor tile, and other related asphalt products of California. Comparable data for the United States are included. Although large quantities of commercially prepared mineral fillers are used in asphalt for paving and related applications in other States, addition of commercial fillers for these uses rarely is required in California because of the natural tines available. On the other hand, California manufacturers of asphalt products other than having utilize about 300,000 tons of asbestos, diatomite, limestone, mica, soapstone, and other nonmetallic minerals as filler, mainly for reeling and flooring. Also about 500,000 tons of roofing, granules is produced in California, most of which goes into roofing manufacture in California. In addition. A significantly large and growing tonnage of relatively coarse mineral aggregates Ire used on low-angle, built-up, asphalt roofs to produce in attractive surface and offer protection against the clements. Clearly ill minerals used in asphalt products manufactured in California come from local sources, except asbestos and mica--and there are indications that local deposits of those commodities could be utilized in some use categories.

Jan 1, 1966

By Mike Perkins

The Summitville Au-Ag-Cu district in the southeastern part of the San Juan volcanic field has been a major gold producer in Colorado. Mineralization is hosted by the composite South Mountain quartz latite porphyry volcanic dome, which is believed to have been localized by the intersection of the northwest margin of the Platoro-Summitville caldera complex and the northwest-trending Platoro fracture zone. K-Ar age dates indicate that alteration and mineralization were nearly contemporaneous with emplacement of the dome at 23-20 m.y. ago, 6-7 m.y. after collapse of the Platoroo-Summitville caldera complex. The dome consists of at least four major phases including strongly altered quartz latite porphyry; a late-mineral, coarse-grained sanidine quartz latite porphyry; and postmineral quartz latite dikes. The dome was emplaced into intracaldera rhyodacite and andesite. Gold-silver-copper mineralization is concentrated near the top of the dome and is associated with pods, pipes and steeply dipping tabular zones of silicification and advanced argillic alteration. Alteration is zoned outwards from the center of mineralization through argillically and propylitically altered rocks, and is largely confined to the area of the dome. Trace element geochemical patterns for the deposit indicate a central zone of anomalous As-Au-Pb-Ag and low Mn within an exterior zone of anomalous Ag-Au-Pb-Hg and high Mn. The chief ore mineral is native gold which is associated with goethitic iron oxide in the oxide zone. In the sulfide zone, native gold is associated with copper sulfide-sulfosalt mineralization. A genetic model for the Summitville deposit is based on recent models of modern geothermal systems, with which it shows similarities in alteration, ore mineralogy, zoning, and structural patterns.

Jan 1, 2013

By L. P. Meade

The need to feed an established talc mill from a crude are source located closer to the mill prompted the drilling in 1986 of a previously mapped talc-carbonate deposit. This talc-bearing rock had never been considered as a potential source of crude talc are because of the high carbonate content and other deleterious minerals that were observed in outcrops. Selective mining, in-pit grade control and creative processing has allowed this deposit to be developed into an orebody. By definition, an orebody has to be a source of positive cash flow. With industrial minerals, this is determined as much by market acceptance as by are tenor.

Jan 1, 1992