INTRO TO mining : EXPLOITATION

MINING ENGINEERING
FOURAH BAY COLLEGE
USL

MODULE CONVENOR: S.J KAMARA

 EXPLOITATION
The mining method selected for exploitation is determined by:
Characteristic of mineral deposit
limits imposed by safety, technology and economics
 SURFACE MINING METHODS

MECHANICAL EXTRACTION AQUEOUS EXTRACTION

Open Open Auger Quarrying Placer Solution

Pit Cast Mining Methods Methods

Dredge Hydraulic Bore hole Leaching

Mining Mining Techniques Techniques
 OPEN CAST
 Employed in mining near-surface or shallow or slightly inclined deposits such as coal seams,
alluvial gold beds, diamondiferous gravels and other thin layers of mineral.

Strip mining is a method used primarily for the mining of relatively flat tabular deposits

 The depth of the pit is virtually the same throughout the life of the mine.

 The major difference between an open pit and a strip mine is that the overburden in a strip mine is
usually placed back in the pit and normally directly into the previously mined cut

whereas in an open pit it usually has to be taken to an out-of-pit dump.

 OPEN PIT
 Here, a thick deposit is generally mined in benches or steps
A relatively thin deposit may also be mined from a single face, just as in quarrying, augering or
open cast mining

 Any overburden must be removed by stripping.

Best employed in mining deposits that are thicker or more deeply buried or that dip steeply or
sharply downwards. Massive deposits are also exploited this way

A conventional mining cycle of operations is employed to extract mineral

rock breakage is usually accomplished by drilling and blasting, followed by the materials handling
operations of excavation and haulage.
Bingham Canyon open pit
 QUARRYING
 Here, valuable rock or stone is cut or broken down into blocks or crushed to suitable dimensions
and sold out without further treatment

The stone or broken rock is neither ground into powder, nor are any chemicals added to them at
treatment stage.

In dimension-stone quarrying, the objective is to produce a sized and shaped product.

 Thus, it is slow and small scale, and (along with square set stoping) is the most expensive of all
mining methods.
 AUGER MINING
 This is employed in recovering coal from the high wall at the pit limit by means of large-diameter
auger machines.

Auger bit and rig

 PLACER - Dredging
Aqueous Methods: These rely mainly on water and other liquid solvents to recover the minerals fro
the earth’s crust.

Placer: This involves the retrieval of gold, diamonds, tin, rutile, ilmenite and other heavy minerals
from river beds and/or beaches. May be done by various methods, namely Dredging,
Hydraulic Mining or Hydraulicking

Dredging involves the scooping up of loose placer deposits such as gold, tin, rutile, ilmenite and
zircon, laid down by running water in river beds, on beaches or on the seabed.

Various dredge types are used, among which are the bucket ladder or bucket line types, suction
cutter dredges and bucket wheel dredges.
 PLACER – Hydraulic Mining
 Hydraulic mining or hydraulicking is the method of mining relatively fine-grained, unconsolidated
materials such as tailings or gravelly deposits, using powerful jets of water

The principal hydraulicking machine consists of a monitor, which is a nozzle assembly. The gravel
or ore is excavated by a stream of high pressure water through the nozzle directed at a bank.

The material is loosened by the direct impact of jets of water. The broken-up material is suspended
into a slurry

 High banks are undercut so that large volumes of material cave in. The slurry moves down a
sluicing path into the pump sump, from which it is pumped into the process circuit.
 SOLUTION MINING
Solution Mining: This includes both in situ techniques and surface techniques, and entails solvent
leaching of mineral values from heaps, dumps or an insoluble matrix or host rock.

It is employed in mining soluble minerals such as evaporites (eg common salt or potash) and suphur,
that can be dissolved or melted by hot water or such other solvent.

The pregnant solution (i.e. the solution that contains the dissolved mineral) is pumped to the surface
for concentration or treatment at the Treatment Plant.
 SOLUTION MINING – Borehole Technique
Bottom Injection: Water is pumped down an inner tube and the dissolved solution (eg brine) is
pumped up through the outer tube.

Top Injection: This is a reversal of the direction of flow in Bottom Injection: the water or solvent is
pumped down through the outer tube, and the pregnant solution pumped up through the inner tube.

TheFrasch Process of extracting sulphur. Here, water is used not as a true lixiviate, but as a
medium to transfer heat into the deposit. The heat then melts the sulphur so that it will drain to sub-
terranean pools for pumping to the surface
 SOLUTION MINING – Leaching Technique
In-situ Leaching: applied on low grade uranium or copper deposits. Various configurations are used

Multiple well system: where a series of boreholes are drilled into the ore zone, the solvent is
pumped down some of the boreholes which serve as injection wells, while the pregnant solution is
recovered (pumped up) through production wells.

Flooding and leaching of a mine (mainly done after a mine has been worked out. This is applicable
to copper mines to dissolve the remaining mineral.

Heap Leaching (eg of low grade oxidized or lateritised ores): this is used to recover low grade
copper, gold or silver ores.

The broken ore is usually heaped on an impermeable pad, a lixiviant (eg dilute cyanide solution for
gold-bearing ores; or sulphuric acid for copper-bearing ores) is sprayed on top of the heap (pile) for a
long time (up to sixty days in some cases).

As the solvent percolates through the pile, it dissolves the minerals of interest.

The mineral-bearing solution is collected on arriving at the underlying impermeable pad layer and is
drained to a solution pond or dame where it is clarified and pumped to the treatment plant.

At the treatment plant, the dissolved mineral is concentrated and/or extracted

 Disadvantages of solution TECHNIQUES
 The solvent tends to flow directly from the injection wells to the production wells without dissolving
the minerals in the ore, i.e. the recoveries tend to be low.

 Possible contamination of surface and ground water sources by the solvent (if there are any
overflows from the dams or if there are cracks in the matrix of the rock underground).

Surface subsidence, especially where large subsurface caverns result from the solution process

Only partial recovery (≤ 80%) of the contained minerals is possible.

 UNDERGROUND MINING
Underground methods are employed when the depth of the deposit, the stripping ratio of
overburden to ore (or coal or stone) or both become excessive for surface exploitation.

Underground mining methods are categorised in three classes on the basis of the extent of suppor
utilised.

They are: unsupported, supported and caving, with individual methods differentiated by the
type of wall and roof supports used, the configuration of production openings and the direction in
which mining operations progress.
 U/G MINING – Unsupported Methods
 This class consists of those underground methods that are essentially self-supporting

Require no major artificial system of support to carry the superincumbent load, relying instead on
the walls of the opening and natural pillars.

The superincumbent load is comprised of the weight of the overburden and any tectonic forces
acting at depth

This definition of unsupported methods does not preclude the use of rock or roof bolts or light
structural sets of timber or steel, provided that such artificial support does not significantly alter the
load-carrying ability of the natural structure.

Eg.

Room-and-pillar mining
 Stope and Pillar mining
Shrinkage stoping
sublevel stoping
vertical crater retreat (VCR)
 U/G MINING – Supported Methods
 Supported Methods consist of those methods that require substantial amounts of artificial support
to maintain stability in exploitation openings and systematic ground control throughout the mine.

Supported methods are used when production openings will not remain standing during their active
life and when major caving or subsidence to the surface cannot be tolerated.

. In other words, the supported class is employed when the other two categories of methods –
unsupported and caving- are not applicable.

Types of supported methods include the following:

Cut-and-fill stoping
Square-set stoping
Stull stoping
 U/G MINING – Caving Methods
 This is a class of methods in which the exploitation workings are designed to collapse.

Caving of the ore or rock or both is intentional and is the very essence of the method. Subsidence
of the surface eventually follows. There are three major types:

longwall mining
Sub-level Caving
Block caving
 Novel Exploitation Methods
Innovative mining methods are continuously evolving.

They are applicable to unusual deposits or employ unusual techniques or equipment.

They are classed in three groups: existing, promising and questionable. The essential feature of
all of them is the departure from conventional/traditional exploitation principles.

Examples include
Automation (robotics) (existing)
rapid excavation in hard rock (existing)
methane drainage (existing)
underground gasification (promising)
marine mining (promising)
Extraterrestrial mining (Questionable)
Nuclear mining (Questionable)