MD - HABIZAR RAHMAN GS 408 Surface Mining Method
MD - HABIZAR RAHMAN GS 408 Surface Mining Method
MD - HABIZAR RAHMAN GS 408 Surface Mining Method
SUBMITTED BY
MD. HABIZAR RAHMAN
EXAM ROLL:150349
CLASS ROLL:2296
REG. NO:37538
SESSION:2015-16
A mine in which the ore lies near the surface and can be extracted by removing the covering layers of rock
andsoil.Almost all surface mining operations are exposed to the elements and require no roof support.
The following outline lists the basic factors which must be taken into account for evaluation of a
prospective surface mine :
• Geography
• Legal status of land and mining rights
• Historical, political, and socialogical factors
• Geology
• Mining conditions
• Ore treatment requirements
• Economic analysis
Geography:
Topography, a function of location, affects cost of development and operation of a surface mine.
Geographic location establishesclimate.Location establishes the condition of remoteness from or
proximity to civilization and its developed facilities such as transportation systems, power supply,
labour pool, manufacturing and supply services, and specialty repair shops.
Legal status of land and mining rights
Land and other necessary rights should be checked, such as water use rights and the ability to acquire
auxiliary land for plant site, roads, tailings disposal ground etc.
Historical, political, and socialogical factors
It is important to determine the extent and nature of national and local laws and regulations in regard
to conservation, water use, water and air pollution, tailings disposal, reclaimation, handling of
explosives, taxes, royalities, import duties, mining safety and health codes, wage and labour
conditions, pension requirements, and unions.
Geology
Geological evaluation may include wide-spaced drilling, drill-sample logging, testing and processing,
plotting of the data on maps and cross-sections, preparation of specialized interpretive maps,
calculation of reserves by grades, calculation of stripping requirements, groundwater studies, and
economic analysis.
Mining conditions
The geometry of an ore body and the topography of the land surface beneath which the ore body
exists will affect the kind and cost of a surface mine. The depth and character of overlying rock and the
physical characteristics of the wall rock also affect the configuration and cost of a surface mine.
• High productivity
• Low operating costs.
• Safer working conditions and a better safety record than underground mining.
There are various types of surface mining, which are used in various degrees and for different
resources. These mining categories are: strip mining, open-pit mining, mountaintop removal, dredging
and high wall mining. All methods of surface mining will remove the waste material, or overburden,
above the desired resource.
Open-pit mining is similar to strip mining, except the ore is removed from an open pit which is not
then filled in. Open-pit mining has been around for centuries, with ancient cultures like the Greeks,
Romans, and Persians mining for granite, marble and even salt.Open-pit mines are commonly
called quarries when they produce materials used in building: limestone, granite, and marble, for
example.These pit mines continue to be enlarged until there is no more ore to mine or the
overburden becomes too heavy. When it’s no longer
economical to operate an open-pit mine, it’s commonly
converted to a landfill or waste disposal site.The pros of an
open pit mine is that these mines usually produce a vast
amount of ore without the costly process of removing
overburden — the ore is often in a large area and close to
the surface. However, a major con of these type of mines is
that they are both dangerous to work in, and permanently
alter the surrounding ecosystem. Figure 2 open pit mining
Basic concept
Although the basic concept of an open pit is quite simple, the planning required to develop a large
deposit for surface mining is a very complex and costly undertaking. At one mine, it may be desirable
to plan for blending variations in the ore so as to maintain, as nearly as possible, a uniform feed to the
mill. At another operation it may be desirable to completely separate two kinds of ore, as for example,
a low- grade deposit where one kind of "oxide" ore must be treated by acid leach, but a second kind of
"sulfide" ore must be treated by different methods. The grade and tonnage of material available will
determine how much waste rock can be stripped, and there is often an ultimate limit to the pit that is
determined more by the economics of removing overburden than a sudden change in the ore deposit
from mineral to non-mineral bearing material. The ultimate pit limit and the slope of the pit walls are
therefore determined as much by economics and engineering as by geological structure. Material that
is relatively high grade may be left unmined in some awkward spot extending back too deeply
beneath waste. The typical large open pit mining operation that has been in production for 10 years
and more is operating under conditions that could not possibly have been foreseen by the original
planners of the mine. Metal prices, machinery, and milling methods are constantly changing so that
the larger operations must be periodically reevaluated, and several have been completely redeveloped
from time to time as entirely different kinds of mining and milling operations. Sometimes the
preliminary stripping of the waste overburden is contracted to firms specializing in earthmoving.
Mining is usually done by track-mounted electric shovels in the large operations, and by rubber-tired
diesel front-end loaders in the smaller operations. Scrapers are sometimes used in special situations.
Large bucket-wheel excavators of the kind used in European coal mines have not been applied to
metal mining, because this equipment is best adapted to softer bedded, relatively flat-lying strata.
Haulage is usually by truck, although railroads, inclined rails, and conveyor belts have been used. The
conveyance unloads directly into a primary crusher and crushed material is stored in coarse ore bins
prior to shipment to the mill.
Blastholes are usually drilled vertically by self-propelled, track-mounted pneumatic or rotary drills.
Bulk explosives are loaded in the holes and large volumes of ore are broken in a single blast.
Sometimes the drill holes are routinely sampled and assayed to help plan the position of the shovels in
advance of mining.
Strip mining gets its name from the fact that the process involves stripping the surface away from the
mineral that’s being excavated (usually coal). Soil, rock, and vegetation over the mineral seam is
removed with huge machines, including bucket-wheel excavators.This type of mining makes sense
when the mineral is near the surface. If the ore is too far under the surface, the process of strip mining
becomes impractical and needlessly damaging to the terrain.Two types of strip mining exist,
depending on the amount of ore under the surface, and
the surrounding terrain. They are:
• Area Stripping extracts ore over a large, flat
terrain in long strips. The overburden of rocks and
soil is dropped in the previous strip so that long
gaps aren’t left in the earth after mining is
complete.
• Angle of repose
• Bench
• Berm
• Haul road
• Highwall
• Pit
• Settling pond/tank
• Stockpile
• Wastepile
• Backhoes
• Bins
• Classifiers
• Cone crushers
• Cranes
• Dozers
• Draglines
• Dredges
• Feeders
• Front-end loaders
• Fuel tanks
• Generators
• Haul trucks
• Hoppers
• Human transport
• In-pit conveyor systems
• Jaw crushers
• Maintenance and repair shops
• Overland conveyor systems
• Scrapers
• Screw conveyors
• Shovels
• Skid steers
• Track haulage
• Truck and wheel washes
• Truck scales
• Water reclamation systems
Human health
The United Mine Workers of America has spoken against the use of human sewage sludge to reclaim surface mining
sites in Appalachia. The UMWA launched its campaign against the use of sludge on mine sites in 1999 after eight
UMWA workers became ill from exposure to Class B sludge spread near their workplace.[13]
Environmental impact
According to a 2010 report in the journal Science, mountaintop mining has caused numerous environmental
problems which mitigation practices have not successfully addressed. For example, valley fills frequently bury
headwater streams causing permanent loss of ecosystems. In addition, the destruction of large tracts of deciduous
forests has threatened several endangered species and led to a loss of biodiversity.
The understanding of the mineral resource development cycle is essential to fully appreciate the problems and
issues of the needed technologies to start the flow of
materials from a deposit to the consumer. The major
steps in the cycle are:
• Exploration
• Development
• Extraction/Production/Operation
• the inability to know exactly what is ahead of the mining face. There is a need to develop look-ahead technologies
for making real-time decisions. In fact, efforts to make the earth transparent is a major objective of earth scientists.
• the ability to predict the mining conditions accurately for reliable control of equipment and systems such as drills
and excavators. Performance of excavators is extremely sensitive to the cutting conditions which in a heterogeneous
material are not easy to predict.
• the mining work environment is quite different from most other work environments. The ambient environmental
conditions in mines are quite different from those in other work environments. Frequent changes in the
environmental conditions cannot be ruled out and require that adjustments be made to the task requirements of a
mining task during execution. All these factors have contributed to the slow pace of automation and autonomous
operations.
• the cognitive component of the autonomous operations is the least developed for mining applications. The mining
machine operator's abilities to successfully maneuver the machine through the changing geological and
environmental conditions are developed over a long time and are not easily captured.
Disadvantages