Talk:Underground hard-rock mining

(Early comment, heading added later)

I would like to see some pictures, if anyone has any, of some of the machinery used in hard rock mining. Thanks!--Candy 18:02, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Wrong picture

I don't think the picture is of Elura (now called Endeavor)

If it is Newcrest it will probably be of the Ridgeway mine

Terms need explaining

Could someone who knows please explain the "Ore extraction" and "Hardrock mining terms" sections in words that readers unfamiliar with mining can understand? Thanks. --Scott Davis ^Talk 12:42, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Trying to clean up

I removed the section (one line) on open pit mining as there is an article devoted to it Kelapstick 17:00, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Access

Only mentions declines and shafts, whereas adits are generally used if at all possible (although many deposits easily accessable by adit will have been worked out years ago). Unfortunately that seems to be part of a distinct section, which strongly suggests to me that a lot of Wikipedia work on mining needs redoing. Unfortunately my knowledge of the subject is rather concentrated on NW England, and the 19th century. Riedquat 23:41, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed use of an adit is preferable where the orebody does not go to any signifigant depth (i.e. the lead-zinc mine in Nanisivik, Nunavut, Canada, where an adit entred the side of a mountain and the elevation of the workings did not nominally change in elevation.) But as you mentioned many of the orebodies which could be accessed in that manner have already been exploited (mainly because of their proximity to surface, ease of access and low capital cost to develop). Perhaps an adit section in the acceess section with a link to the main adit article. I also agree that much of the work about mining on Wikipedia requires work, however my Wiki-knowledge is rather limited.

--Kelapstick 02:04, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

If I'm going to arguably get pedantic, mines worked by adit may then later develop from internal shafts, or a mine worked from an internal shaft may have an adit driven lower to meet that shaft. This may not have been done initially if the adit would've required a long drive. Greenside mine did this in the 19th century with the Lucy Tongue level, which IIRC took 20-odd years to drive. The mine was also worked considerably below that level afterwards. Then there was the 5 odd mile Nent Force level to undercut and dewater several Nenthead mines in the 18th century, although I don't think it was ever used to remove ore. Then you can have the same company working the same lode using largely the same methods, but from an adit in one place and unconnected shaft at another (I think Thornthwaite Mine did that, but I'll need to check). All these were hard rock mines, which is why my rant has started here, but it's also why I don't think the divisions given in Wikipedia's mining sections are particularly good ones for a high level.

Come to think of it, the ore access part is rather incomplete too; not all orebodies are in near-vertical veins. I suppose I should really start learning enough to make useful edits on the bits where I'm reasonably confident I'm not going to be too outdated or localised.Riedquat 13:04, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I would say that although all hard-rock orebodies are not vertical or near vertical, most of them have enough variation in elevation in them to rely on some sort of decline or shaft (even if it may be internal). This is due to the way many of them are formed (some sort of magma intrusion in a void in the host rock, perhaps a fault or other geological feature). Horizontal ore near horizontal orebodies are more common in soft rock mining, like underground coal mines, salt or potash, which should probably warrent a topic unto itself.

An adit is indeed a valid method to access an orebody, and should be included in mine access, but regardless if there is a decline or shaft, there is still a level (horizontal excavation) in which the ore is accessed from, which may in fact be the adit itself.

--Kelapstick 18:01, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I see your point. What was one of the primary lead mining areas in the North of England contained significant non-vertical deposits (the so-called "flats"), which were associated with but not part of veins. However, that's arguably going into too much detail, especially for an overview; it probably belongs to a geology article. Riedquat 18:31, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Ventilation

There should probably be a whole article on this, but in the meantime I've put a picture in. It's probably worth having a picture of something underground, after all!Riedquat 19:24, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Definition?

Is it really necessary to have the (hard rock) behind this? I'm a geologist, so maybe I'm talking out my rear as usual, but the process of mining hard rock and 'soft rock' is basically the same until you cme to longwall mining of coal, and its various derivatives. Is it better to not find ome way to name this page which is based on the processes distinct from longwall mining or retreat mining of coal? Rolinator 09:31, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Not necessarily the same, i.e. using a continuous miner to mine salt. I agree it is a little somewhat unnescesary (I'm the one who moved it :S), I was just trying to distinguish it from coal/other material that is not mined with traditional "dril and blast" techniques, as they are quite distinct.--Kelapstick 10:49, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I've heard "hard rock mining" used in the same way (although I'm not sure, now I think about it, if any of the people I've heard use it are or were actually miners - I'll have to try to remember to ask a miner some day), but I don't know how accurate it really is, or, perhaps more importantly, how much of a distinction the industry has, and the fact that I view underground quarrying as possibly more like hard rock mining makes me wonder just what criteria I'm thinking with! Riedquat (talk) 18:50, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I worked in a mine in South Africa and there are definately two destinctive types of underground mining. I now recruit miners. Mines from "sub-sahara" Africa have soft rock under ground mining more refered to as a colliery. Generally coal is the main mineral here. And yes, it can be mined from deep levels. Whilst in South Africa we have mostly "hard rock" mining. Even though both are mined at deep levels the mining methods are very different due to the rock types. For example: in soft rock mining the method of exstraction will be mainly conventional whilst in hard rock mining it will be trackless. So yes, there are definately two distinctive types. CAEng (talk) 12:36, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Undergound Hard Rock Mining in South Africa

Good day all.

I assume you guys are all from America or elsewhere. I actually worked in a "hard rock underground mine" in South Africa called "Avgold Target" I worked from 67Level(6700ft) to 78Level(7800ft). So that would be from 2,04Km to 2,37Km undergound. This used to be a conventional gold mine that was converted to a trackless mine.

Currently I'm running a recuitment angency involved strictly in mining on a national level in South Africa.

Avgold Target is the most technically advanced mine in the Southern hemisphere of the world competing with a mine in Canada for the number one position in the world!On Monday 21 Jan 08 I will be recieving photos from them of underground operations that I will share on here. If you would like me to explain "hard rock gold mining in South Africa" in lamens terms so everyone can understand it, please let me know...

Ps... If someone canexplain how I imput a picture on here I will add actual photo's.

Greetings Shane CAEng (talk) 12:23, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

A picture is a file, so in the "toolbox" on the left side of the page, click on "Upload file". The Upload page gives a brief review of licencing questions for pictures that you didn't make yourself. It's easy if you made the image yourself; otherwise copyright can be sticky. If licence is not a problem, pictures can be uploaded to Wikipedia:Commons and thus made easily available to many Wikipedia articles, projects, and outside users.

Yes, the article currently does not use or define the terms "conventional" and "trackless" as applied to this industry, which I gather is a significant distinction. Jim.henderson (talk) 13:52, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe a seperate article for Trackless mining and Conventional mining. The articles themselves probably have a lot of information, and the core underground mining (hard rock) article is getting quite large, but the two terms certainly deserve a mention, similar to the mining method section, a breif description with a wikilink to the main article.--Kelapstick (talk) 14:00, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

What main articles have that information? I see none by those names, nor about those topics. Far as I see, these seem to be proper topics for two future subsections of the small "Ore removal" section of the present article. Thus far, the terms haven't been used in the article or even defined, much less explicated in detail. Currently the biggest section is about holding the ground in place, so if the present 15K article were to be regarded as excessively large, that would be the section to be hived off into independence. However, there's no need to get ahead of ourselves. When the article becomes substantially bigger with new and well-crafted material, we can start worrying about the proper way to split it. Jim.henderson (talk) 21:50, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I mis-spoke, if created articles called Trackless mining and Conventional mining have potential to contain a lot of information. They could be created, and linked to with a summery of the terms in this article.--Kelapstick (talk) 21:58, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

When we see how much good material we dig up, we can decide how many articles should be built to contain it. For that matter I thought trolley tracks in mines as shown in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom were old hat, not used in modern mines where conveyor belts and special low profile motor vehicles with rubber tires do the work. This would make "conventional" the wrong word for mines with tracks. But then, it's a matter of which I know little. Jim.henderson (talk) 16:43, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Good point (even though I always heard of mining with tracked equipment called conventional mining, not sure what other people call it)...perhaps track mining rather than conventional mining...although wouldn't Old-school mining be an awesome article name??? We can cross this bridge when we get to it I suppose, but I agree.--Kelapstick (talk) 16:48, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

To me "Old-school mining" is too informal for an article title. It could be made as a redirect to traditional mining if that is appropiate. Volcanoguy 05:36, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Glory holes

    I am about to overwrite Glory_hole_(mining) with a redirect to the section that it lks (via Rdr) to in the accompanying article. I don't want to understand mining well enuf to decide whether the only quasi-'graph among the material i'm overwriting, to wit

* In the block caving method of underground mining, ore collapses from above into a mine tunnel. If enough ore is removed, the ground surface collapses into a surface depression called a glory hole. Examples include the Climax and Henderson molybdenum mines in the U.S. state of Colorado

merely summarizes the section it lks to on the accompanying article (and can thus be discarded along with the dictdefs that make up the rest of the page i'm overwriting), or deserves to be partially or fully merged "here". Perhaps a colleague with more background will make that call, and so note on this talk pg.
----Jerzy•t 22:19, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Notability of different mining methods

In the article, there is a short description of Block Caving, but Wikipedia does not have an article about that particular mining method. What critera does a mining metod need to meet in order to be considered notable? For example, consider sublevel caving mining. This mining method is used at several mines around the world, and in one of them (LKAB Kirunavaara) it is used in a mine employing thousands of employees, in a mine which takes up more than 10 million tons of ore yearly. Is that notable in and of itself?

If sublevel caving mining were to be considered worthy of a wiki article, I could write up a description of it. To do so, I would just have to copy relevant parts of my PhD. thesis. The original research part of my thesis covers highly technical details of sublevel caving, the description of the mining method would be stuff that was already widely known to many people in the field of mining. Would that run afoul of wiki rules? 46.236.70.107 (talk) 22:31, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Such an article should be notable. However, simply copying parts of your thesis likely wouldn't work. This is an encyclopedia not a dissertation and what is the copyright status of your thesis? Now, you are welcome to start such and article written as an encyclopedia article and using your references from your thesis work in support. Please create a user account and look over the relevant policies around here. Drop me a note on my talk if you have questions. Vsmith (talk) 01:59, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Dispute: Harshest conditons

I wish to dispute the claim (asserted without evidence, seemingly) that "The harshest conditions for hard rock mining are in the Witwatersrand area of South Africa, where workers toil in temperatures of up to 45 °C (113 °F). However, massive refrigeration plants are used to bring the air temperature down to around 28 °C (82 °F)." Underground_mining_(hard_rock)#Deepest_mines

Having traveled underground and toured several mines in the Carlin region in Northern Nevada (Carlin type gold deposit), I can state that this claim is dubious at best. Groundwater that entered the mine from the country rock was in the neighborhood of 160°F, with rock temperatures in a similar range. Some areas of the mines routinely exceed 100°F, even with ventilation. Also the Lucky Friday mine in Silver Valley, Idaho purports having temperatures underground in the same neighborhood.

I suggest this be either struck from the page or revised to reflect accurate information.

-Geologist, Colorado School of Mines

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