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By J. E. Hawley, R. C. Hart

"The Preston East Dome gold mine is in the southeastern part of Porcupine district, Ontario, 5 miles southeast of Timmins, and immediately south of the property of Dome Mines, Limited.The claims now owned by this Company were originally staked in 1909. After the property had remained dormant for many years, the present Company was organized in 1936 to resume development operations. Two shafts had been sunk: at the time of the early work on the claims, but lateral work from these failed to reach the ore deposits. A successful diamond drilling campaign undertaken under the direction of D. G. H. Wright, however, was followed by the sinking of a five-compartment shaft arid the erection of a mill. From the start of operations to the end of 1944, 1,292,000 tons of ore averaging $11.60 in gold a ton have been mined.An outstanding feature in this mine is the occurrence of the major gold deposits in quartz porphyry intrusives, though minor deposits are also found in the adjacent Keewatin volcanics. Most of the ore occurs in fractures, but the filling was accompanied by varying degrees of replacement of schistose wall-rocks. The ore deposits may be classified as:"

Jan 1, 1954

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 James R. Walpole

Less than 100 years ago the first major federal regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission was established (in 1887), and since that time literally hundreds of other federal agencies have been created. The regulations set by these agencies tremendously affect the individual citizens of this country as well as U.S. institutions. A few examples of the myriad agencies established include the Food and Drug Administration. (1907), the Bureau of Mines (1910), the Federal Reserve System (1913), the Federal Trade Commission (1914), the Tennessee Valley Authority (1933), the Securities and Exchange Commission (1934), the National Labor Relations Board (1935), the Small Business Administration (1953), the Federal Maritime Commission (1961), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1965), the Farm Credit Administration (1971), etc., etc. Eight years ago, on December 2, 1970, still another federal agency was established by the reorganization plan of President Nixon -- the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Administrator of EPA was given authority to regulate certain activities affecting the environ-ment, which were formerly within the jurisdiction of the Department of Interior, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the Federal Radiation Council, the Atomic Energy Commission, the Department of Agriculture, etc. Within weeks after the formation of this Agency, Congress began to enact legislation which would be administered by EPA. Over the last eight years a considerable number of such laws have been passed, a few of which include: the Clean Air Act (1970), the Noise Control Act (1972), the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (1972), the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act (1972), the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (1973), the Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), the Toxic Substances Control Act (1976), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1976), the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977, etc. It may be helpful to review, in a summary fashion, the major provisions in some of these statutes, and accompanying regulations, as they relate to water quality control in the mining industry. The Safe Drinking Water Act and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act contain provisions to be examined, as well as the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Toxic Substances Control Act. One other law, the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (1977), is not administered by EPA although it does contain many provisions related to environmental control, and it will also be dis-cussed because of its importance to the mining community.

Jan 1, 1978

By A. W. Deurbrouck

This report describes the washability characteristics of 18 coal samples taken from 11 drill hole cores from the San Juan Basin area of New Mexico and Colorado. The ash content of these coals could generally be substantially reduced by removing the heavy impurities. The coals were characteristically low in sulfur content; only one sample contained more than 1 percent sulfur after removing the sink-I.50 specific gravity material. The coals ranged in rank from subbituminous C to high volatile C; 11 of the samples were subbituminous A. Many of these core samples came from areas where very little fieldwork has been done; consequently, an outgrowth of this work has been an increase in known coal reserves of the San Juan Basin area.

Jan 1, 1972

By H. R. Stahl

THE disseminated lead district of Southeast Missouri lies 70 miles south of St. Louis. The only metal of economic importance in the ore is lead, but minor amounts occur of iron, zinc, copper, cobalt, nickel, silver and cadmium. These minor metals, as might be expected, tend to concentrate in both the flotation and table middlings. In the past, some zinc has been recovered by differential flotation. The silver and cadmium tend to associate with the zinc, and some recovery is made of these two metals at the smelter. The lead occurs as galena, or lead sulphide. The minor metals are also present as sulphides. The presence of oxidized lead is suspected, but has not been definitely proved. The gangue is chiefly dolomitic limestone, with small amounts of sandstone and shaly glauconitic and chloritic minerals. The ore contains about 3.25 per cent lead, occurring as galena disseminated through the gangue. Some of the galena is very finely disseminated, and the mineral in the gravity tailings, or chat, is seldom or never in the free state. The method of treatment of the ore has been evolved over a period of 75 years; hence probably is not far from correct. The milling processes have tended toward simplification during the past 15 years, but recoveries have never been sacrificed for the sake of simplicity. In many cases, simplification of flowsheets has led to better recoveries and operating economies. A simplified flowsheet is shown in Fig. I. The St. Joseph Lead Co. operates four mills in the Flat River district, with a normal total capacity of about 21,000 tons per day, divided as follows: Federal mill, 11,000 tons; Leadwood mill, 4500 tons; Desloge mill, 3400 tons and Bonne Terre mill 2400 tons. The methods of concentration used at these plants are similar in principle; they differ mainly in details and in the type and size of the equipment used. The process of concentration may be divided into five main steps; i.e., dry crushing, wet grinding, classification with its attendant desliming, tabling and flotation. A brief description of these processes will be given, noting important differences in the various plants, and also noting the more important changes or developments of the past few years. DRY CRUSHING The run-of-mine ore is hoisted in skips, the capacity of these skips ranging from 2 ¾ tons to 8 ¼ tons. At the Desloge plant, the ore is hoisted in 2-ton mine cars on self-dumping cages. All ore is hoisted at shafts adjacent to the various crushing plants, no ore being transported on the surface. Primary breaking at all the mills is accomplished with 9E Telsmith breakers. Preliminary screening is provided ahead of most of these crushers, either by station-

Jan 1, 1943

By H. Marshall Farrier

In the past few years the world petroleum industry has increasingly felt the weight of changes in the principal economic factors affecting pro¬fits. As a result of, these changes, it has been necessary for many oil companies to acquire certain new facilities in order to strengthen their competitive positions and thereby protect their tremendous investments in crude oil reserves, pipe line facilities, refining operations, and marketing outlets. Principally these needs have been met by new capital outlays. A supplementary, method of acquiring needed facilities, however, has been to obtain existing facilities through complete or partial acquisition of other companies.' properties. It is this method of meeting competitive pressures with which this paper is concerned. This paper presents a statistical breakdown of the mergers and acquisitions which occurred in the oil industry between January 1, 1954, and October 1, 1959, showing the frequency' with which certain types of properties were acquired in each of the years studied. In addition, it discusses the principal economic conditions which stimulated many of these property trans¬fers, comments on the effects of these mergers on the consuming public, and indicates the types of, mergers and the rate at which they may be expected during the next three or four years. The basic data upon which the statistical analysis presented in this paper is based were taken from several published sources. Obviously they are somewhat incomplete because not all mergers and acquisitions were reported However;, a careful search was conducted through, The Wall Street, Journal, The Oil and Gas Journal, Potroleum Week, and The Oil Daily with the result that the data should be reasonably complete and comparable for each of the years studied, It is believed, therefore, that the statistical analysis which' follows provides a reasonably accurate indication of the general trend in mergers and acquisitions during the period studied.

Jan 1, 1960

By Aaron Samuel Young, Hiago Antunes Amador de Oliveira, William Pratt Rogers

Low commodity prices and lack of new high-grade deposits are pushing the mining industry for innovation. Lean mining has been vastly discussed in the past decades as a way to continuously improve mining efficiency. Although very theoretical, lean mining presents a set of new solutions enabled by the digital transformation that the mining industry is going through. This paper proposes a framework for a short interval control system with the purpose to allow timely responses by front line supervisors upon operational deviations. In the first part, the author briefly reviews concepts of short-range planning and lean mining. Then, the materials and methods used for the development of the short interval control system are discussed. Finally, alpha trial results are presented, and next steps discussed.

Oct 3, 2019

By C. Musingwini

The South African mining industry continues to be a major source of employment at a time when at least 25 per cent of the working age population is unemployed. At the same time the industry faces a skills shortage in many of the disciplines necessary for its future health. The University of the Witwatersrand, University of Pretoria, University of Johannesburg, and University of South Africa have historically produced mining graduates for the South African industry, with any shortfall being met by the recruitment of overseas graduates. More recently the global shortage of engineers and other mining industry professionals has seen a reversal of this trend and a very significant emigration of well-educated and highly skilled personnel. The traditional career path for mining graduates is in production and mine management. However, there is the parallel and possibly more pressing need for specialized skills in such fields as ventilation, rock engineering, mine planning, mineral resource evaluation, and mineral asset valuation. It is in these essential areas that chronic shortages continue to hamper the development of the industry and may well frustrate its ambitions to be safe, healthy, and profitable into the future. The permeability of skills across sectorial boundaries within the mining industry requires that skills shortages in the platinum sector are not looked at in isolation, but within the context of the entire industry. This paper reviews the efforts being made by the universities at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels to meet the needs of the South African mining industry, in terms of the required numbers and the range of specialized skills.

Jan 1, 2012

By Jeffrey M. Christian

Gold prices are rising, in what is coming to be seen as the beginning of a longer term upward trend. After languishing between $325/oz and $364/ oz from early 1991 into early 1993, prices began rising in the first half of 1993. Gold rose from a low of $326/oz in March 1993 to $414/oz on an intraday basis in early August. There was a speculative sell-off at that point, which took gold prices quickly back down to $350/oz briefly in October 1993. At that time, there still was a fair degree of skepticism about gold's price prospects. Many banks believed that gold prices could not mount a sustained rally. As prices dropped in August and September of last year, these suspicions seemed to be confirmed. Gold prices quickly rebounded, however, reaching $395/oz by early January 1994. The strength of this renewed increase led many banks, investors and others that had held negative views of gold to grow more positive. They began buying gold and trading it from the long side of the market. The result was that gold prices remained strong during the first quarter of 1994, trading between $375/oz and $390/oz.

Jan 1, 1994

By N. A. C. Smith, E. W. Dean, W. A. Jacobs, H. H. Hill

Fractional distillation is the most important process in the commercial refining of petroleum. The same procedure, conducted on a small scale, is the basis of a number of analytical methods of wide application in the petroleum laboratory. The Bureau of Mines has studied apparatus and procedure for the distillation analysis of petroleum, and this report is presented as a record of developments up to the present time. The work is incomplete, but the extensive information that has been obtained to date is made available as a guide in handling laboratory distillation problems. The analytical distillation of petroleum is commonly made to determine range of boiling points or to separate the oil. into fractions for detailed examination, or both. When only one of these two ends is sought the procedure involved is notably simpler than when, as is more common, information is required regarding both boiling range and properties of fractions. Moreover the degree of minuteness of measurement and the accuracy of the data required from analytical distillations differ considerably. Often the simplest sort of comparative figures are satisfactory; other tests require complicated and highly tedious procedure. No one distillation method is universally applicable, and it is impossible for anyone group of investigators to foresee all the different kinds of requirements that may occur in the industry.

Jan 1, 1922

By E. T. Knight, John D. Gill

IN ITS capacity for service to the public the oil industry is truly gargantuan. But it is only in this respect that the industry is the voracious, many-headed, many-armed and many-handed creature it has been so often painted by those who know it not too intimately and only from the outside. Contrasted sharply with the immensity of the service rendered is the relatively modest share of the national income which has gone to those who provided the tools and the mental and manual labor with which the service was performed. No doubt the relative meagreness of the re- ward was the result of a combination of fortuitous circumstances respecting the nature and accessibility of the industry's raw material and the extensive development and application of the most advanced technology, spurred by an intense competition.

Jan 1, 1940

By Julian W. Feiss

Before undertaking to present to you a current analysis of copper, I would like to preface my remarks with a few observations that in themselves have a bearing upon commodity reviews in general. Having sat through a large number of such reviews since first joining the A. I. M. E. nearly forty years ago, I have no illusions about the hazards of the undertaking. If a speaker presents a statistical summary of commodity economics for the last year, most of his audience, having already read at least four commodity summaries on the identical subject, either get up and walk out or fall asleep. Should the latter happen, and were the listener to tumble from his chair and break his neck, obviously the speaker is liable. The subject matter seldom lends itself to histrionics on the part of the speaker so dangers of heart attack in the audience are not too great. Therefore the speaker, in order to retain listener interest, resorts to prophecy. Such venture was undertaken long ago by weather soothsayers, the "harouspex" of Ancient Rome, who generally cut up a sacrificial sheep and after staring at the entrails made their predictions which I understand had a batting average somewhat better than those undertaken on Wall Street based upon Dow Jones averages. Not being a licensed harouspex I cannot undertake predictions. I shall, however, fall back upon the experts.

Jan 1, 1965

Jan 1, 1893

By Edwin Ludlow

To THE members of the American Institute of Mining and? Metallurgical Engineers who were fortunate enough to be able to attend the Fiftieth Anniversary at Wilkes-Barre, it was brought home that commercial anthracite requires not only expensive mining but that the milling or preparation of it is also a costly operation, requiring very large capital expenditures and high maintenance and labor costs. The great trouble that coal men meet in discussions of coal problems today is the difficulty the average coal user, especially in the East, finds in distinguishing between anthracite and bituminous coals. They are two entirely separate problems and yet the people who are burning coal complain bitterly of the high cost of anthracite and quote the figures furnished in regard to the prices of bituminous coal and feel that the anthracite operators are making an excessive profit, without realizing the enormous difference in the cost of production in the two fields. The great difference that can be marked is that in this year of industrial depression the prices of anthracite have been not only maintained but have increased during the summer, while the price of bituminous coal has been continually dropping since the first of the year, and yet the same law of supply and demand governs both anthracite and bituminous. In order to understand the situation the two problems must be considered from their separate points of view.

Jan 1, 1921

H. Van F. Furman, Denver, Colo. (communication to the Secretary): There are some statements in Dr. Carpenter's interesting paper which appear to require explanation, if not modification.

Jan 1, 1901

By Olivia Gamache

When working in remote and extreme environments, projects are faced with new challenges for engineering and project execution. This is heightened when also working in countries with a developing environmental regulatory framework, small skilled workforce available for recruitment, and minimal infrastructure such as power, roads, and water. There is an increasing realization that social and environmental aspects need to be built into project execution. Giving proper attention to these issues during project development and execution, and maximizing opportunities is an ongoing challenge.

May 1, 2013

By G. Reed Marchant

The control systems engineer is often faced with the problem of designing tests or experiments where the cost of obtaining information is expensive. This is true in aerospace as well as in process industries. In these situations the details of test design should be carefully evaluated before any test is executed so that the maximum amount of information is obtained for the effort expended. In recent years there has been a steady trend towards increased automation, In the process industries this has resulted in extensive review of process variables and, instrumentation techniques, development of more accurate system mathematical models, and extensive investments in complex control system as well as completely automated plants. When planning and developing these systems, where each measure of a process variable is usually expensive, it behooves the design engineer to give considerable thought to the details of test design before instrumentation is procured and installed so that the maximum amount of information can be obtained for the expense incurred.

Jan 1, 1968

By Lorraine B. Burgin

The extensive lead time to develop most Arizona copper deposits commenced with initial production efforts before the turn of the century, when the first attempts were made to recover gold and silver and later copper from the high-grade vein deposits of the territory. Each of these discoveries, prospects, and early operations had its own lead time and life cycle as economic production was attempted. Because prices of the metals fluctuated and the higher grade material was depleted, economics forced operations to close and companies to fail. Renewed interest in the property because of improved conditions, different interpretation of the geologic structure, or new promotional ability frequently resulted in the formation of yet another company to finance the exploration and, hopefully, the development of the property. This cycle of renewed activity and subsequent abandonment was and is common, accounting for many lead times and for the long period of time from the initial location of claims to large-scale production. In order to gain a perspective on the lead-time interval necessary to achieve development of a large-scale operation, the histories of several major Arizona mines were examined, rather than a simple listing of discovery and production dates of many mines to arrive at a statistical average. The Miami, Castle Dome, Copper Cities, San Manuel, and Twin Buttes properties were studied, and as much data as possible obtained on the Pinto Valley, Esperanza, Sierrita, Pima, and Mineral Park-Ithaca Peak properties.

Jan 1, 1974

By J. J. McClelland

The face area of a continuous mining section of an underground coal mine is the most dangerous area in the mine. Workers there are at nearly twice the risk of death or disabling injury than those in other parts of the mine. Despite extensive training of miners and improved equipment and mining methods, fatality and injury rates have remained constant during the past few years. It is clear that advanced research is necessary to apply new technologies or modify work procedures to solve the continuing problem of the loss of lives and the numerous injuries at the mine face. A U.S. Bureau of Mines research program is developing a Reduced-Exposure Mining System (REMS) that relocates personnel operating the mining machinery at the face away from the hazards to a nearby haven of relative safety. REMS uses proven technologies of computer automation and robotics to help control the operation of the mining machines at the face, while personnel are moved away to a nearby, safe control room. In this protected, well-ventilated environment, they can supervise or control the operation of the machines while viewing what the machine is doing using video and graphic display monitors.

Jan 1, 1994

By Rossiter W. Raymond

(Chattanooga Meeting, October, INS.) THE formal outline of Mr. Hague's life and work is embraced in the following statement, chiefly based upon data furnished by him, at my request, shortly before his death. At that time the probability that I would survive to record his death was apparently small; but I urged upon him the duty of providing, whether for me or for my successor as Secretary of the Institute, trustworthy material for the notice which somebody would some day have to write-and which might otherwise be incomplete or incorrect. Mr. Hague, with characteristic promptness and freedom from affectation, did what I asked of him; and I am therefore . able to present an authoritative sketch-concerning the details of which I shall add my own comments, and some particulars obtained from others of his personal friends. James Duncan Hague was born Feb..24, 1836, at Boston, Mass., where his father, Rev. William Hague, D.D., an eminent clergyman, then resided. After a preliminary, education in private. schools, be studied in 1854 at the, Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University; in 1855 and 1856 at the University of Göttingen, Hanover; and from 1856 to 1858 at the Royal Mining Academy of Freiberg, Saxony. In 1859-1861 he was attached as chemist to a South Sea exploring expedition, sent by W. H. Webb, of New York, to examine Jarvis, Baker, and other islands for phosphate-deposits. After the outbreak of the Civil War, he entered the U. S. Navy, serving for a year as Judge Advocate to the fleet stationed at Port Royal, S. C. In 1863 he became Superintendent of the Albany and Boston copper-mine, in the Lake Superior region, where he was also connected with the earliest development of the Calumet and Hecla property. In 1867 he became the First Assistant Geologist in Clarence King's famous Exploration of

Feb 1, 1909