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By Tina Živec, Žibertm Marko

"Civil design has changed in many ways using BIM (Building Information Modelling) technology in its most recent form. Such a technological breakthrough has not been successful so far in traditional oriented Engineering Geology, except in the Mining and oil exploration markets with budgets on much different scales. The fact is that paper, pencil and hand drawn sketches are still state of the art and a perfectly acceptable way of producing subjective geological interpretations.Using the technology available, we have developed a set of procedures and techniques to combine the latest surveying and remote sensing technology, GIS based tools to manage large data sets and BIM modelling techniques in a 3D geological environment.To demonstrate the concept, the forthcoming Karavanke tunnel project (Slovenia) has been chosen for testing techniques. The project, with its rich documentation from previous phases and new data available, represented a good basis for testing the possibility of digitizing geological data while communicating with Leapfrog Geo 3D modelling algorithms. This type of procedure would then allow engineers at the construction site to use the 3D model for prognosis and evaluation, while upgrading it daily with new information.INTRODUCTIONThe Karavanke tunnel crosses the mountain range on the border between Slovenia and Austria. As the geology is very complex due to its imbricate fan structure, a series of geological – geotechnical and hydrogeological investigations have been performed since the 1970s, resulting in extensive project documentation. The construction of the 7864 m long single-tube two-lane tunnel took place in the late 1980s. Currently, the tunnel represents a critical point on Pan-European Transport Corridor X (Salzburg, Austria – Thessaloniki, Greece), with insufficient safety measures. The need for improved traffic flow and enhanced road safety led the Slovenian government in 2013 to a decision to continue with activities regarding the construction of the second tunnel tube 70 m east of the existing tunnel.The extensive project documentation from previous investigation phases and construction of a new tunnel tube presented a good base for a pilot project, in order to test the emerging new technologies for data acquisition, processing and analysis in a 3D environment. Several products are available on the market for data acquisition and 3D geological modelling, but only a few can be applied in the civil design, as well. Developing a standard format and procedure for implementing the 3D geological model using new remote sensing techniques, 3D geological modelling tools, such as Leapfrog Geo and BIM (Building Information Modelling) modelling techniques would move the Engineering Geology, Geotechnics and Tunneling to a more advanced level. 3D modelling tools would therefore not only be used as a visualization tool, but would also contribute to in a more efficient communication and workflow between the professionals involved in the project."

Jan 1, 2016

By David R. Maneval

The mining of coal in Alaska receives special treatment in the Surface Mining and Reclamation Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 1977 (PL95-87). Section 708 of the Act required that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) perform a study of "Surface Coal Mining Conditions in the State of Alaska, In Order to Determine Which, If Any, of the Provisions of the Act Should be Modified with respect to Surface Coal Mining Operations in Alaska'. The special committee on Alaskan Coal Mining and Reclamation of NAS completed their study in 1980 and prepared their report (NAS, 1980). At this time, the Secretary of the Interior and the Congress have taken no special action with regard to either special regulations geared specifically to Alaska or to submitting special draft legislation to the Congress requesting amendment of PL95-87. The Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has drafted legislation which was submitted to and passed by the 1982 session of the State Legislature. The State regulatory agency has also drafted the requisite regulations necessitated by the amendments to the State's Basic Coal Mining Act. It is expected that by mid 1983 DNR will have applied for "primacy" to the office of Surface Mining, U.S. Department of the Interior (OSM). They will be submitting the amended State Law, the revised State Regulations and an operational plan as called for by OSM regulations. The presumption is that primacy will be granted to the State of Alaska under PL95-87. The Usibelli Coal Mine continues to be the only operational commercial mine for coal in the State of Alaska. It produced 7.26 x 10 kg (8 x 10 " T) of coal during 1981. The current mine was started in 1920 by Captain Lathrop, an early developer and pioneer in Alaska. It was continued by Emil Usibelli and was taken over after the death of E. Usibelli (in the 1964 earthquake) by his son Joseph Usibelli who is the current President of, the firm3 Their latest improvement is a 27.5 m (36 yd. )Bucyrus-Erie Dragline which handles most of the overburden removal. The coal is removed by a loader-truck combination. They are currently starting up the use of a unit train loading facility which handles forty cars every two hours. This loading system was a development necessitated by the Sun Eel Export contract. The Alaskan Railroad was a major cooperator in the development of the first unit train loading facility in Alaska.

Jan 1, 1982

By Franz Wilhelmstoetter, Christian Karner

"The Confederation Line is phase one of Ottawa’s light rail transit, which consists of 13 stops and stations. The project’s center piece is a 2.5 kilometer (1.6 miles) long tunnel with three underground stations leading underneath downtown Ottawa and is constructed within feet of adjacent buildings. The downtown stations, Lyon and Parliament, are caverns approximately 16.5 m (54 ft) by 18 m (59 ft) in a horseshoe configuration constructed in rock, while the third station, Rideau, is approximately 22 m (72 ft) by 18 m (59 ft) in an oval configuration and constructed in mixed ground. The paper will discuss design decisions made early on in the project such as excavation method, unique construction sequencing, and equipment selection, and go on to include corresponding progress rates. The paper also documents design and construction challenges of large caverns in very close proximity to existing buildings and varying ground conditions. Finally, an overview of achieved construction milestones and a current construction progress will be presented. Station cavern excavation is expected to be completed in early 2016. INTRODUCTION The number of urban metro construction projects has certainly increased over the last decades. Cities are growing rapidly all over the planet and many are striving to keep up with the increased demand for public transportation. One of the most feasible types of inner-city transportation with the capacity for large quantities of passengers are metro (subway) systems. Still, large construction projects in dense urban areas often affect the city’s residents in mostly negative ways. During construction, residents face the obstacles of road closures, noise, dust, economic loss for businesses, and property value losses are common. In other words, individuals are directly affected by the way new infrastructures are planned, designed, built and operated. The tunneling industry offers unique opportunities of keeping these side effects to a minimum and possibly avoiding them all together. Although challenged by a variety of constraints (some of which will be discussed in this paper), urban tunneling applications offer a chance to keep cities environmentally, economically, socially, and culturally sound during construction."

Jan 1, 2016

By James J. Scott

I am indeed honored to be the 1991 recipient of the Daniel C. Jackling Award. To be voted this honor by my peers in the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration and AIME means more to me than I can truly express. Daniel Jackling's position and prominence in the mining industry first came to my attention in the fall of 1949 when I transferred from Wisconsin Institute of Technology, then a three-year school, to the Missouri School of Mines to complete my last year for a bachelor's degree in mining engineering. I played basketball in the Jackling gym and ran track on the Jackling field. I didn't know a lot about Jackling then, except he was an honored graduate of the school and, obviously, supported the school financially. Over the years, Jackling's name kept coming up. He was a man with a reputation for being a doer, a mining leader who was always a step ahead, a mining engineer who knew how to motivate men in the working place, to organize mining systems, to finance and organize corporations. to open up new, low-grade ore bodies for exploitation. If Jackling were alive today, I would expect he would bean excellent candidate to apply practical rock mechanics to his projects. Looking over the list of Jackling Award recipients, I have known many, have met many personally and had a few who were dear friends that affected my own professional life. Ab Shoemaker, '58, and I consulted at the White Pine Copper Co. on mining problems in the 1960s. We arranged for our visits to the mine to coincide so that we could collaborate on our ideas. I would rent an auto and drive for Ab. He said he was the only mining engineer in the country that had a PhD for a chauffeur. James Boyd, '67, was my mentor as regards the White Pine Rock Mechanics Program that we organized in 1963. Only through Boyd's forsight. leadership, dedication and willingness to spend money on research and development did the Practical Rock Mechnics Program at White Pine succeed. He never wavered in his support to that program or to me personally. Tom Howard, '75, was my predecessor in 1970 as Director of Mining Research for the US Bureau of Mines. When I joined the Bureau in August 1970, he had the research centers up and running. Any successes I may have had with the Bureau of Mines were due in great part to Tom's leadership and organization throughout the 1960s. Gene Cameron, '68, was my teacher at the University of Wisconsin and I remember him fondly. He was the one professor who lectured in a manner that made me welcome going to his classes each day, a truly remarkable educator. If you have come today to listen to me talk about instrumentation, rock properties, stress-strain relationships, rock mechanics theory, etc., you will be disappointed. Large volumes of data have been collected by well qualified theoreticians to define stress-strain conditions in mines. Unfortunately, very little of this data has been used by industry due to the lack of initiative and understanding by the researchers to the true problems of implementation in the industry. I hope my remarks will assist future investigators to work through the maze of operational problems so they will experience the satisfaction of seeing their research used. I fully realize that the Jackling Award is given by the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration and is primarily offered for accomplishments in hardrock mining. I have found it impossible to separate hardrock and coal mining when I talk about "Applied Rock Mechanics." There is too much overlap and the same mechanics principles are applied to both. For example, coal mine designs have been applied to salt, trona and potash. Also, the original layout and design of White Pine Copper Mine was based on coal mine designs. Any developments to apply rock mechanics ideas must

Jan 1, 1992

By Melvin A. Jennings

Even though the title of this paper is quite long, the ideas presented herein are very simple. In fact, it occurs to me to be somewhat humble about coming before such a distinguished group with such a simple presentation. However, the application of these ideas has proven useful in at least two copper flotation plants. The purpose in presenting this paper is to inspire some interest in the great stores of data chat the Mining Industry often accumulates without making any attempt at analysis. Unfortunately, many milling engineers rely rather heavily on percent recovery as a strict measure of a concentrator's relative performance. The fallacy of this reasoning is not difficult to see since, by definition, percent recovery is a function of feed assay, tails; and concentrate grade. If copper tailing is constant, and it very nearly is for a strictly sulfide copper ore, percent recovery must fluctuate almost directly to the feed assay. The point that I wish to make here is that it is very seldom justified to compare the percent recovery figure from one period of time to another without considering the difference in feed assay. The problem of comparing results is even further complicated when the ores are of mixed oxide and sulfide mineralogy.

Jan 1, 1978

By A. T. Iannacchione

Unrecognized roof beam failures resulted in 69% of the falls of ground injuries occurring in underground U.S. stone mines from 1990 to 1996. Field investigations at 45 underground stone mines suggest that excessive beam sag or deflection is the principal unstable roof behavior characteristics associated with miner injuries. Laminated roof structures, common in most underground stone mines, allow the immediate roof to separate into distinct beams. The timely determination of roof beam deflection could provide stone miners with advanced knowledge of potentially hazardous roof. Existing methods to assess roof conditions consist of observational and monitoring techniques. Observational techniques include open drillholes, sounding, wedging, and borescopes. Monitoring techniques include scratch tools, extensometers, telltales, Miners Helpers, and Guardian Angels. 1 Miners have difficulty utilizing these techniques because roof beams are located an average of 8 m (26.5 ft) above the miner's head in environments that are dark, dusty and noisy and these deflections are measured in millimeters of movement. To help mitigate the potential for falls of ground injuries to underground stone miners, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has developed the Roof Monitoring Safety System (RMSS) to aid in monitoring dangerous levels of roof beam deflection. If enough site-specific information is collected and placed on highly visible maps, individual mining operations could establish general guidelines for responding to specific roof beam deflection occurrences. This would help in implementing a pro-active, comprehensive roof control plan for reducing falls of ground injuries.

Jan 1, 1999

By A. G. Moon

Kennecott Copper Corporation's Chino Mines Division concentrator is located in Hurley, New Mexico. Construction of the concentrator was started in 1910 and its capacity was progressively increased over the years to the present nominal 20, 425 t/d of ore (22, 500 stpd). The principal copper minerals present in the ore are chalcopyrite and chalcocite with much of the chalcotite intimately associated with pyrite. Lime is used to depress pyrite, and flotation at a high pH or alkalinity is required for optimum recovery of chalcocite with good rejection of the pyrite. Regrinding is also required to liberate chalcocite-pyrite middling grains. Accurate control of the lime addition is necessary to obtain both optimum metallurgy and minimum lime usage. At low pH levels, flotation cell control is difficult due to excess froth, but excessively high pH levels can go unnoticed because froth characteristics do not change from those experienced at the deisred pH. With manual control of the lime addition, the desired pH can be exceeded for periods of up to two hours. In 1972 a major renovation of the flotation and regrinding circuits was com¬pleted and at that time a new lime distribution and control system was placed in operation. Limestone is obtained from a nearby quarry west of Hurley. The limestone is crushed, sized and fed to a rotary kiln and the quicklime product is stored prior to slaking. The lime is slaked, as required, in a mixing tank-classifier type slaker and the lime slurry is pumped to a concentrator storage tank from which it is distributed through a conventional closed loop system. The current average lime usage rate is approximately 6 kg/t of ore (12 lb per st).

Jan 1, 1976

Ceremonies for the induction of four mining industry pioneers into the National Mining Hall of Fame will be held Saturday, Sept. 11, 2010 at the Charles F. Barber Pavilion of the Museum Convention Center in Leadville, CO. The 23rd Annual National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum Banquet will begin with an open house and reception at 5:30 p.m., followed by the dinner and program at 7 p.m. The four inductees are: William Wheeler Coleman who served 46 years, from 1911 to 1957, as president and chairman of the company that is now Bucyrus International of South Milwaukee, WI, a world leader in the manufacture of surface and underground mining equipment. Dr. Allen Van Heyl, Jr., an economic geologist who served with the U.S. Geological Survey for nearly 50 years beginning in 1943. He studied more of the nation?s mineral deposits than most could begin to imagine. Arthur Lakes contributed enormously to the geological and mining sciences in the western United States as a geologist, teacher, writer and artist over a period of more than four decades beginning in 1869. The Arthur Lakes Library at the Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO, is named for him. Samuel Calvin McLanahan, through his inventive genius, changed the direction of his family?s company from that of a foundry to a leading manufacturer of minerals processing equipment to become today?s McLanahan

Jul 1, 2010

By J. R. Evans

In order to patent an industrial mineral placer mining claim, it must incorporate an economic deposit. Each ten acre parcel is evaluated for its mineral -in -character nature. Nonmineral -in -character parcels cannot be patented. Economic concerns include: claim locations, dummy locators, common variety nature, "excess reserves," and environmental constraints. Also, geologic and mineralogic studies, sampling and testing procedures are vital. Mining, milling, processing cost, and taxes must be evaluated. Product marketability analysis is necessary before starting any cash flow or discounted cash flow study. Valid data is essential to evaluate an economic industrial mineral deposit.

Jan 1, 1997

By Jodi Banta

Thanks to strong industry support and longstanding partnerships, the University of Arizona has provided extensive pre-college mining education and outreach for more than a decade. These efforts to promote mining-related degree programs and the wide variety of indemand career opportunities reach thousands of middle and high school students and hundreds of teachers every year. The School of Mining Engineering & Mineral Resources is constantly looking at ways to help students overcome barriers into degree programs. But competition among degree programs for talent is fierce, and outreach has not made a big enough difference in the number of students pursuing mining engineering degrees. With workforce shortages threatening to undermine the industry, more is needed. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates 500 new mining engineering jobs each year, and according to a study by Deloitte (2023) nearly 50 percent of skilled engineers will reach retirement age in the next decade. At the same time, the 14 accredited mining or mineral engineering degree programs in the United States are producing fewer than 200 graduates annually (Society of Mining Professors and Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration, 2021). To better understand mining’s competitive position, the School of Mining Engineering & Mineral Resources conducted a comprehensive study to determine (1) how prospective college students, parents and educators perceive the industry, related careers and the mining engineering degree, (2) factors affecting students’ choices of degrees and career plans and (3) the roles parents and educators play and how they influence students. This article is the first of two installments to discuss the results. This installment focuses on what students, parents and educators think about mining and where they get those impressions, as well as the role parents and educators play in influencing students’ choices of careers and degrees. The second installment, scheduled for publication in a later issue of Mining Engineering, looks at what students are seeking in their degrees and careers, and how mining compares with other degrees and industries.

Sep 1, 2025

By R. D. Shackleton

Medusa Cement Company, a division of Medusa Corporation, is a medium-sized cement manufacturer serving the midwest, east, and southeast. Medusa's eight plants are located in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Canada. Of these, six have active limestone, shale, clay, and sand quarries now in operation. This paper deals with the various individual state laws regulating mining and reclamation at the Georgia, Illinois, and Pennsylvania quarries. Several recommendations for future state mining laws are discussed also.

Jan 1, 1974

By Guodong Li, Chenlin Wang, Zibiao Yu, Bo Xu

Abandoned coal mines have many underground space resources, such as roadways, shafts, and gobs. Among them, abandoned roadways are the best gas storage space for underground compressed air energy storage (CAES). However, CAES caverns have high air pressure and strict sealing requirements. Therefore, the stability and sealing of abandoned roadways under high internal pressure must be analyzed. Afterward, the suitability of abandoned roadways used for CAES caverns should be evaluated. In this study, the numerical simulation software FLAC3D was used to calculate the stress, deformation, plastic zone volume, and pore pressure of surrounding rock in an abandoned roadway under 10 MPa internal pressure. The influence of buried depth, surrounding rock grade, and in situ stress state on roadway stability and the effect of surrounding rock permeability on roadway sealing were analyzed. Results showed that the stress, displacement, and plastic zone volume of surrounding rock were affected by high internal pressure when the buried depth was less than 300 m, but high internal pressure had little effect on them when the buried depth was more than 300 m. The suitable range of buried depth was more than 300 m. The optimal choice of surrounding rock grade was I and II, followed by grades III, IV, and V. The optimal choice of in situ stress state was σH > σh > σv, followed by σH > σv > σh and σv > σH > σh. The sensitivity of the stability evaluation parameters was ranked in descending order as follows: buried depth, surrounding rock grade, and in situ stress state. When the surrounding rock permeability was less than 1 × 10− 14m2, the 24-h air leakage rate of the roadway was less than 1%. The suitable range of surrounding rock permeability was less than 1 × 10− 14m2.

May 23, 2023

By Cyrus W. Field

Metalliferous sediments constitute an important component of the sedimentary veneer that overlies basaltic oceanic crust of the Nazca Plate and elsewhere. Although first collected more than one century ago near the East Pacific Rise during the Challenger Expedition and recognized for their anomalously high content of Fe and Mn, occurring as very fine-grained, yellow-orange, oxides, hydroxides, and oxyhydroxides, it was not until the more detailed studies of Bostrom and Peterson (1966) that their geologic significance and concentrations of other transition metals were fully appreciated. The Nazca Plate is a dynamic lithospheric unit bordered by the Peru-Chile trench and the East Pacific Rise to the east and west, and by the Galapagos Rift and the Chile Rise to the north and south (Fig. 1). Samples employed in this study were taken from piston core recovered from the Nazca Plate (Fig. 2), D. S. D. P. drill core from the northeast Pacific (Dymond and others, 1973), ferromanganese nodules from dredge-haul s at several locations, and from hydrothermal mineral deposits of the Andes. Our efforts have been largely sponsored by the National Science Foundation through its International Decade of Ocean Exploration Pro- gram. The metalliferous fraction of these sediments is widespread, but generally small. Sedimentation is dominated by biogenic silica in the equatorial latitudes, terrigenous debris adjacent to the South American Continent, and by biogenic carbonate elsewhere, except at depths below 3500 m in the central and northwest parts of the Nazca Plate near the East Pacific Rise. Contributions of these distinctive sediment types are shown by the distributions of Si02, A1203, and CaC03 given in Figure 3.

Jan 1, 1982

By Emil Szaks

[A great number of papers have been presented at various Engineering Society meetings on the Unit Train subject. Moat are descriptions of facilities that have been constructed or are abort to be built. Many describe the facility as being the World's fastest, newest, largest, incorporating the latest technology and so forth, Many are duplications of installations that have been recently constructed, sort of carbon copies but perhaps arranged differently. The trend has been to incorporate loop tracks, rotary dumpers, indexers and, of course, the snivel coupler equipped unit train. How that the energy crisis has increased the use of coal, there has been a tremendous Increase in applications for permits to construct rail to river coal loading facilities. This paper is different. It does not describe any single existing facility, but is given to alert prospective terminal owners and engineers that there are items that require considerable study and evaluation beside merely selecting an indexer, car dumper, stacker, ship or berg loader and so on. An important item is the selection of the railway car which in turn can affect the selection of the method of loading and unloading. Let us list a few of the items that should be considered and discuss the areas that require examination:]

Jan 1, 1979

By A. M. McKim

6, 7.3 meter diameter autogenous mills at Wabush Mines are undergoing conversion from a radial configuration of pulp discharger to a curved design. Improved discharging efficiency has effectively lowered the pulp level in the mill. The low level operation enhances the grinding efficiency netting a 12% power reduction. Significant reductions to rate of wear has been a spin off benefit. The design incorporates features for holding the assembly solidly in place thus eliminating bolt hole damage and leakers. Preliminary work in one 11 meter mill at Hibbing Taconite did not indicate that all the same advantages were available in their process.

Jan 1, 1982

Exploration for SX-EW copper deposits and plant operation depend largely on the copper and gangue mineralogy inasmuch as? they govern the feasibility of leaching. Mineralogical parameters are pivotal in identifying if an ore is suitable to dump, heap, thin layer, vat or agitated leaching and/or if the ore requires curing, bioleaching or alternate lixiviants. Problems in metallurgical testing, production leaching and recovery forecasting are very often related to lack of mineralogical data. This presentation will illustrate the use of quantitative mineralogical analysis for exploration, acquisition assessment and optimization of copper leach operations.

Jan 1, 1996

By Jurgen Weissflog

Why, where and since when using shiftable conveyors? Advantages of this equipment The ever increasing demand for bulk materials such as ore, coal, lignite, oilsand, oilshale and bauxite requires mainly an opencast operation. To exploit these materials huge amounts of overburden and partings must be transportes by means of conveyors, trucks or trains. When analyzing the various opencast mines it can be established that there exist only two basic types of mining systems, i. e., the discontinuous strip mining system as used in the USA (Fig. 1) and the continuous mining system as is commonly applied in Europe. The reason why these two mining methods have been developed parallel to and independently of each other to such a high technical standard results from the varying geological conditions of the mineral deposits.

Jan 1, 1983

By N. Wahl, D. M. Blackketter, R. Thornton

This paper evaluated using a water-filled abandoned mine (Orphan Boy) as a heat source for a 240- kW closed-loop heat pump with the goal of heating a 2,000-m2 building. The mine has a 245-m vertical shaft connected to a large stope by three horizontal cross-cut shafts. There is 1,250 x 106 L of water at a consistent temperature of 24-26° C that is available mostly in the stope. The only heat exchanger placement option is in the vertical shaft. Therefore, the focus was to model heat exchanger placement in the vertical shaft to determine the extent to which the systems will induce thermal currents between the stope and vertical shaft. Modeling of thermal currents, temperature profiles and heat contribution from the ground was done using finite difference and computational fluid dynamics. An optimal configuration was determined showing sufficient water movement and heat transfer will occur with a low water temperature in the shaft above 20° C. This project supports a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) grant that will implement the full-scale system.

Jan 1, 2013

By W. A. Haley

As far back as 1939 state laws have required reclamation of mined lands. Reclamation has been the topic of many discussions and presentations, especially since the late 1960's. In the past ten years many states have added legislation concerning the reclamation of coal-mined lands. In the near future, it seems certain that some federal regulations will be passed that will set minimum guidelines for the states to regulate. Besides the requirement of returning the land to the approximate original contour, future regulations will more than likely demand replacing topsoil from one to five feet thick. As regulations become more stringent, costs will rise accordingly. Since no one has developed a machine that can do all reclamation work by itself, it is necessary to review in detail the tools available and to select the most economical means.

Jan 1, 1976

By S. S. Peng

In this paper, the precise definitions for a number of commonly used subsidence parameters are given. The subsidence parameters have been determined using an integrated approach for 110 subsidence cases collected in the major US coal fields. Attempts have been made to establish empirical formulae for the parameters. The results of this study indicate that some traditionally-held concepts should be changed.

Jan 1, 1995