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In this U.S. Bureau of Mines report, proposed narrow-vein and longwall mining concepts using drill-split technology (described in part 1 of this series) and in situ liner concepts (described in part 2 of the series) are combined and applied conceptually to environmental problems. Proposed applications deal with (1) acid mine drainage (AMD), (2) solid waste disposal, (3) site remediation, and (4) pollution prevention through innovative industrial design. For control of AMD from abandoned hillside mine workings, it is proposed that source veins be re-mined, processed for residual values, then backfilled using an impermeable compound backfill mix. For solid waste disposal, "vertical landfills" are proposed, consisting of trash-backfilled underground rock quarries. Vertical landfill activities take place in in situ lined containments that geohydrologically isolate the mining-backfilling activities. Site remediation through the creation of in situ underliners, for the capture of toxic leachates, and pollution prevention through the underground storage of toxic, flammable, and explosive materials in in situ containments, are proposed.

Jan 1, 1995

By Wilford S. Wright, Harold E. Heide, Robert S. Sanford

"INTRODUCTION The United States production of tin has always been negligible, and domestic requirements have been met almost entirely by imports. The advent of war in Europe in 1939 brought a threat to our foreign source of supply, and steps were taken by Congress to forestall shortages of tin and other metals. By authority of the Strategic Minerals Act, passed by Congress in 1939, the Bureau of Mines and Geological Survey conducted investigations of domestic tin deposits.An examination of Alaska deposits was undertaken in 1940 and 1941 by J. B. Mertie, Jr., and Robert R. Coats of the Geological Survey.H. B. Heide conducted a preliminary examination of lode and placer-tin deposits at Cape Mountain in 1942, which was followed in 1943 and 1944 by a program of exploration by churn drilling in the placer area and trenching and sampling the lode deposits.Placer tin, found at the head of Goodwin Gulch, Cape Creek, First Chance Creek, and Boulder Creek, indicates that the mineral was derived from the vicinity of lode cassiterite occurrences on Cape Mountain. Placer tin led to the discovery of at least one, cassiterite vein by the Geological Survey and the Bureau of Mines."

Dec 1, 1946

By Y. P. Chugh

This is the final report of a study done by IIT Research Institute for the Bureau of Mines to identify the problem areas and technological inadequacies in noncoal (metal, nonmetal, stone, and sand and gravel) mining and processing systems that are the primary causes of death, injury and occupational disease, and to make recommendations to improve safety and health in these operations. The findings and recommendations presented in the report are based on: (1) analyses of MESA injury and employment data for the period 1961-70, MESA fatality reports for underground noncoal mines (1968-72) and lost time accident data for 1970-72 obtained from mining and processing operation: (2) visits to a variety of noncoa1 mines and mills throughout the country to observe the operations and to study the safety organization and practices used in the industry and (3) interviews with industry and government representatives knowledgeable in the field of noncoa1 mining and processing safety and health. The report provides a comprehensive overview of safety and health problems.

Jan 1, 1974

By K. E. Stanfield

The Bureau of Mines oil-shale program, initiated in April 1944, is concerned with the future utilization of oil shale in the United States as a source of liquid fuel. One phase of this program is the accumulation of information on the location, extent, and richness of oil-shale deposits that may be suitable for processing to oil and related products. A previous publication5/ presented, by means of logs, the oil yields of sections of the largest known oil-shale deposit in this country -the shales of the Green River formation occurring in adjoining portions of the states of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. This present supplementary report presents the oil yields of cores from 48 holes drilled during 1952 to 1954 in the Green River formation of Colorado, which is distributed over an area of more than 1,000 square miles. The oil yields of the 48 oil-shale sections, involving the assay of 9,651 samples, representing 22,451 feet of core, are presented by means of logs. In addition, the oil yields of samples comprising the maximum sections of 15 gallon-per-ton shale are tabulated for these cores and for the 28 cores from Colorado which were logged in the previous report.

Jan 1, 1957

Electrical trailing cable used to power coal mining machinery is frequently damaged in usage because of tensile strain or crushing effect of mining machines running over the cable. One of the repair problems is finding the exact location of a short or open in this cable so it may be spliced or otherwise repaired. The U.S. Bureau of Mines and FMC corporation signed Contract No. H0 122011 in August, 1971, to develop instrumentation for finding faults in coal mine trailing cable. This report describes performance of several existing instruments as trailing cable fault locators and also construction details and performance records of several cable fault location instruments that FMC designed, built and tested as part of this project.

Jan 1, 1973

By S. J. Gerdemann

In support of its objective to improve mine safety, the Bureau of Mines has searched for better materials and systems to anchor roof bolts. TIlis report describes a study on the effects of mine waters upon accelerated gypsum, one of the materials under consideration. The accelerated gypsuw dissolved at an appreciable rate relative to an assumed 10-yr life span of a roof bolt. Surface orientation, initial ion concentration of a dissolving solution, and flow rate of the solu-tion had substantial effects on the dissolution rate. Factors such as water-cement ratio, accelerator content, wax capsule additions to the gypsum in cartridge-installed bolts, surface area, temperature, and curing duration had little effect. In an actual roof-bolt environment, dissolution will occur in static solutions to the solubility limit of gypsum (~2 giL) and cease, result-ing in minimal damage; but in flows of unsaturated solution as slow as 1 L per month, a loss of up to 10 pct will occur in 2 yr. Since miners cannot readily measure the flow or ion concentration of static-appearing water at every roof-bolt site, all such water must be assumed to be pure and flowing. It is recommended that gypsum-bonded roof bolts be confined to dry roofs only.

Jan 1, 1983

By J. W. Adams

Two different techniques were wed to make measurements of the absolute value of electromagnetic noise in an operating hardrock mine, Grace Mine, located near Morgantown, Pennsylvania. Diesel-powered haulage equipment is used in this mine, and the electromagnetic noise environment it creates was measured to see how it differs from the environment created by electric-powered haulage equipment. One technique measures noise over the entire electromagnetic spectrum of interest for brief time periods. Data are recorded using broadband analog magnetic tape and are later transformed to give spectral plots. The other technique records noise amplitudes at several discrete frequencies for a sufficient amount of time to provide amplitude probability distributions. The specific measured results are given in a number of spectral plots and in amplitude probability distribution plots.

Jan 1, 1974

By Philip K. Hopke

A systematic study of the mechanism of interaction of 218Po(RaA) armed by the decay of 222Rn with airborne particulate matter has been made. The rate of attachment of RaA to particles in the diameter range of 0.1 µm to 10.0 µm has been measured as a function of particle size, concentration, and composition, radon concentration, time of interaction, relative humidity and temperature. It was found that under the conditions in these experiments the attachment rate was proportional to the square of the particle diameter and varied with temperature and relative humidity. The composition of the particles apparently has no effect on the attachment. The variation in attachment rate was related to a sticking probability coefficient of approximately 0.02 that varies systematically with temperature and humidity. In addition, the rate of deposition of RaA on the wall of the attachment kinetics system was measured and also found to change with temperature and relative humidity.

Jan 1, 1980

By F. J. Perzak

The Bureau of Mines conducted a flammability study of plastic ventilation ducts. Six rigid 16-in-diam fiberglass-reinforced plastic ducts from five manufacturers were examined using laboratory-scale, large-scale, and full-scale fire tests. The laboratory-scale tests included the American Society for Testing and Materials E162 radiant panel test, the E2863 oxygen index test, and the standardized small-scale flammability test (S3FT) developed by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), U.S. Department of Labor, and replicated by the Bureau of Mines. Ten-foot lengths of the same ducts were also subjected to a large-scale vertical fire test, and 20-to 30-ft lengths were tested in a full-scale in-mine fire test at the Bureau's Lake Lynn Laboratory mine. The data from the laboratory-scale radiant panel test and oxygen index test indicated that the ducts were fire-resistant, However, five of the six ducts failed the S3FT and vertical fire tests, and four of the ducts failed the full-scale in-mine tests with flame propagation rates that ranged from 3 to 10 ft/min. The results indicate the need for improved fire-resistant plastic ducts. The good agreement between the S3FT re-sults and the vertical and full-scale tests show that the S3FT provides a good indication of the flammability of fiberglass-reinforced plastic ducting under realistic fire conditions.

Jan 1, 1987

By Michael C. Horn

The 61,470-acre Lick Creek Roadless Study Area is in the western Salmon River Mountains, centered 12 miles northeast from McCall, ID. U.S. Bureau of Mines personnel examined the roadless area in 1984. There is no recorded mineral production from the study area and no current mineral-related activity was observed. The roadless area is underlain by granitic rocks of the Idaho batholith. Pegmatite dikes and aplite dikes are present locally. Sampling indicates these rocks are not mineralized. No mineral resources were identified. INTRODUCTION This report describes the USBM (U.S. Bureau of Mines) portion of a cooperative study with the USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) to evaluate mineral resources and potential of federal lands recommended for wilderness, as required by The Wilderness Act of 1964. The USBM examines and evaluates individual mines, claims, prospects, and mineralized zones; USGS conducts broader geological, geochemical, and geophysical surveys. Such data helps Congress and other federal agencies make decisions affecting the use of public lands.

Jan 1, 1986

By M. R. Geer

Efforts to evaluate washery performance are nearly as old as the art of coal cleaning, and in former years there was no uniformity in either the methods used or the basic terminology employed. This situation, and the con- fusion it bred, prevailed until about the time of the First International Coal Preparation Conference in 1950, Largely because of the interest of the French coal research organization Cerchar, the subject of evaluating performance was given prime importance at this conference. As a result, there is now a much greater degree of uniformity in terminology and methods of expressing cleaning results. The International Standards Organization currently is working toward international standards of terminology and methods that should improve the situation even more. The various criteria that are used to evaluate the performance of coal- cleaning equipment fall into three categories, depending upon the extent to which they are dependent on the density composition of the raw coal; some are directly dependent, others are only indirectly dependent, and still others are substantially indenpendent.

Jan 1, 1962

By William C. Cooley

A technical and economic study was made of the feasibility of establishing an underground hydraulic coal mine in the Wilkeson-Carbonado coal field approximately 25 miles southeast of Tacoma, Washington. The deposit contains reserves of more than 200 million tons of generally high quality metallurgical coal. It is located in nine seams of minable thickness in a complex, folded and tectonically disturbed set of anticlines and synclines. Typical dip angles are up to 60°, with minable seam thicknesses of 6 to 17 feet. A mine plan was made for a 2 million TPY mine (clean) using two shafts to access the deposit to a depth of 2500 ft. The mining method uses monitor jets to break coal by sublevel retreat mining, fluming to a sump and pumping the minus 0.25 inch coal to the surface and to a preparation plant. The plus 0.25 inch coal is hoisted by skip. Cleaned met coal would be shipped by rail for export. A middlings product would be sold as thermal coal. Assuming a coal price of $48 per short ton (FOB the mine) for the met coal and $35 for the middlings, the return on investment is estimated at 20% after taxes. The many uncertainties about the geological conditions and the specific mine design parameters make the economic analysis and conclusions somewhat tentative. A second mine could also be developed in the eastern section of the reserves to produce 1 million TPY of clean coal and is expected to have similar economics. Recommendations are made for a Test Mine and a Pilot Mine leading to a production mine.

Jan 1, 1983

By F. S. Karn

Conditions necessary to obtain optimum yield of useful products when coal is rapidly heated to extreme temperatures by laser irradiation were determined by the Bureau of Mines. Product distribution and yield were investigated as functions of several variables. Low-rank coals with high-volatile matter gave highest total gas yields. Medium-rank coals gave the highest yields of H2 and CA and low-rank coals gave highest yields of CO and C02. Macerals gave gases of approximately the same composition, but the total gas yield increased in the order fusinite, micrinite, vitrinite, and exinite. Total gas and C2H2 yields varied inversely with particle size. The addition of nominally inert gases such as Ar, He, N2 increased yields of H2, C2H2, and total gas. Metals such as nickel and platinum had little influence on the rate of coal decomposition. Total gas yield increased with total energy of irradiation, and the ratio of C2H2-CH4 increased with concentration of energy. A study was also made of the irradiation temperature, and a material balance was calculated.

Jan 1, 1970

By Jesse J. Brown

Over 60 simple; were prepared and forwarded to Dr, S. Z. Toma, TPO, PMSRC as a result of this project. Included among these samples were various low temperature forms of silica. Samples of quartz, cristobalite, and tridymite with iron, manganese, and titanium impurities present were prepared. In addition, a long series of samples both wet ground and dry ground for times from 1/2 to 8 hours were prepared. Numerous miscellaneous samples were submitted which included kaolinite, calcite, muscovite, illite, montmorillonite, Ba3(P04)2, and YPO4 among others, in response to special requests from the TPO. The silica rich portion of selected binary (CA 203-Si02, In 203-Si02, Li20-Si02) Na20-Si02, PbO-Si02, SnO2-Si02, Sn02-Si02 BaGa204-SiO2 and SrGa204-Si02) and ternary systems (Na20-Ga203-Si02 and Li20-Ga203-Si02) was investigated to determine the effects of solid solubility on the stabilization of the high temperature forms of tridymite. In addition to the determination of the extent of these crystalline solubilities, observations were made. on the mechanism of the transformation of silicic acid to tridymite and the rate of the reaction in the presence of foreign ions,

Jan 1, 1973

By Robert Stefanko

This report, rather than attempting to replace previous annual reports, supplements, and more importantly, coordinates and summarizes the entire effort. Even with such restrictions, the report is voluminous and, therefore, a decision has been made to divide it into two parts. The first volume is basically narrative and includes tabular results and analyses. The second volume is in appendix form giving detailed information. Together, they permit a logical discussion of all aspects of the project (Volume I) without cumbersome distractions but, at the same time, provide all the details to permit others to evaluate and explain the results or develop similar research programs (Volume II). The aim of the original proposal was basically to develop instruments and techniques and then make measurements of suitable power parameters, ground fault currents and ground resistance beds. With such information available, it was possible to develop a meaningful simulator which would permit investigating electrical systems and components on paper without costly trial and error procedures in the third year, a cable splice testing program was added to the project. While there were the usual delays attendant in such original research, these objectives were achieved.

Jan 1, 1973

By A. E. Raddatz

In an attempt to develop technology to use domestic resources in place of imported bauxita, the Bureau of Mines investigated sulfurous acid leaching to extract alumina from kaolin. The process consists of leaching the calcined kaolin with a 30 wt-pct S02 solution at 60° C and 160 psig for 17 hours, fil¬tering the leach slurry, precipitating monobasic aluminum sulfite from the filtrate at 110° C and 60 psig, a& decomposing the sulfite in the spent liq¬uor at 150° C and 55 psig to produce crude alumina. Purification of the crude alumina was accomplished using a modified Bayer process. Results from closed-circuit tests employing the sulfurous acid process showed that overall extraction of alumina from kaolin was 67 pct. Production of 1 ton of alumina would require 3.6 tons of calcined kaolin, 0.7 ton of sul¬fur dioxide, and 8.4 tons of water. After purification by a modified Bayer process, the alumina product contained the following; impurities, expressed in weight-percent: Fa203, 0.009; S, 3.6; Si02, 0.07; Ti02, 0.002; K20, 0.017; and P205, 0.03.

Jan 1, 1981

By R. A. Egen

The purpose of this book is to provide an indication of what good hoisting practice is and how it might be achieved. To this end the book contains discussions of equipment and inspection and maintenance procedures developed and used by mining people in striving for safe, reliable hoisting equipment. Most of this information comes from domestic practice; the rest is foreign, notably from Canada. Most things discussed have long proved their general worth, and others promise to; a few are beginnings. However, nothing is conjectural or theoretical; the practices described herein are in use somewhere in the mining world. The stress is on equipment in use; it is not a design-guidelines manual. Nevertheless, there are some sections dealing with design material since it may be of value in a maintenance/ replacement sense. Mine hoisting installations encompass such a wide variety of equipment and conditions that it is impractical to specifically cover them all. This book mainly treats conventional systems using conventional components with some discussion of the more common unconventional (special) systems in use. There is no recognized definition for a "conventional" mine-hoisting system. Herein the term means those systems most commonly used in daily operations for transporting men, materials, and product-electrically driven drum and friction hoists, with guided conveyances running in vertical or inclined shafts. Beyond this, what "conventional" means is probably best illustrated by the topics discussed.

Jan 1, 1975

The following Inventory was prepared to provide mineral deposit data to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for use in the Resource Development Navigation Study in Alaska. The inventory was prepared using data contained in the U.S. Bureau of Mines Minerals Availability System (MAS) database. The Alaska portion of the database contains Information on over 7,000 mineral locations and deposits throughout the state. When MAS was established In 1975, database entries were originally compiled from literature searches by both Bureau personnel and contractors. Deposit data are obtained/maintained through Information gained from a variety of sources, Including published and unpublished Bureau of Mines reports, records, and files; U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Bulletins, Professional Papers, and other reports; technical and professional Journals; State and other Federal agency publications; data generated during field examinations; and information obtained from knowledgeable individuals. Because of the size of the data base, many of the data have not been significantly modified since initial entry. Each deposit on the MAS data base has a sequence number of the following form:

Jan 1, 2011

By E. B. Olds

This paper describes the methods and costs of deepening the 3-compartment underground shaft in the Hooper Tunnel adit at the Bunker Hill & Sullivan Mining and Concentrating Company Crescent mine in the Coeur d'Alene mining region, 7 miles east of Kellogg, Shoshone County, Idaho. The work was done with the aid of a Defense Minerals Exploration Administration contract (No. Idm-E493, Docket No. DMEA-2764). Preparation for deepening the shaft was begun March 26, 1953, and sinking was completed May 27, 1954. The shaft, bottomed at 1,275.5 feet in 1939, was deepened to 3,276 feet, using mechanical mucking and intermediate pockets. A total of 50,349 man-hours was required to complete the work of sinking 2,000.5 feet, cutting 7 pump stations, and driving 2 pocket raises. The rate of advance was 7.1 feet of shaft per operating day, or 8.4 feet per day of actual sinking. The total direct cost for sinking was $205.20 per foot.

Jan 1, 1957

By M. K. McCarter

Previous investigations suggest the possibility of determining shear strength of geologic materials by measuring the force necessary to rupture the web between two closely-spaced, parallel holes using a borehole jack. Current research using finite element modeling and laboratory testing of intact rock indicates that web failure initiates by tensile fracturing induced by a complex stress field. Based on these results, a theoretical justification for relating web strength with shear strength appears unlikely for holes of equal diameter spaced two diameters apart. Empirical results, however, show a strong correlation between average web strength and average unconfined compressive strength for some rock materials under laboratory conditions. A good correlation also exists between residual web strength and the residual angle of friction under the same conditions. This research project involves the construction and field testing of a large borehole jack. The jack is designed to operate within a conventional 12-1/4 inch rotary blasthole common to open pit mining. The system is capable of exerting approximately 800,000 pounds on curved platen measuring roughly 4x24 inches. Field tests indicate that the system will operate in a mining environment, and preliminary results suggest the possibility of using the force-displacement data generated by the jack to rank the competency of material within a mine bench.

Jan 1, 1982