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By OTTO HERRES

UTAH has enormous deposits of high-grade bituminous coal. The United States Geological Survey estimates that there are 13,130 sq. mi. of land in Utah known to contain workable coal and these extensive fields contain 196,000,000,000 tons of coal. Growth in population and development of industry in the intermountain and Pacific coast regions will in time give Utah a place with the great coal producing states of the country. Even today, faced by adverse conditions in competition with cheap fuel oil from southern California, water-power throughout the western states in general, and comparatively high freight rates to its distant markets, the Utah coal industry is notable in many respects. In recent years, Utah has led the United States both in the percentage of its mines in class 1, mines producing more than 200,000 tons a year, and in average production per man per day, which was 6.01 tons in 1921. In Mineral Resources of the United States, 1921, Part

Jan 1, 1925

By W. A. Foster

NINETY years after the Riddle nickel deposit N was discovered in Oregon in 1864, Hanna Coal & Ore Corp. began mining operations. Until 1954 much prospecting and preliminary development work had been done on the property, but no ore had been shipped other than for metallurgical testing. The deposit is being explored by churn drilling and trenching, and a few test shafts have been put down for the purpose of studying the ore in place, determining volume and moisture factors, and gathering bulk samples for pilot plant and smelter tests. In churn drilling, 6-in. casing is driven down 2 or 3 ft behind the drill bit and bottomed at each 5-ft interval. All the sludge for each cased 5-ft interval is dumped through a splitter and one eighth is saved and analyzed. Drillholes are stopped after going through the ore zone and penetrating fresh peridotite in which the nickel content is less than 0.5 pct.

Jan 8, 1957

By H. M. Faust

THERE are a number of different types of power plants. Some use coal to generate steam, others use oil or gas either in the form of steam or internal combustion equipment, while still others avail themselves of water power as a source of energy. A general comparison of the relative power production with different sources of energy in the United States, for several different years is set up in Table 1. This table shows that coal was used to generate 85.6 per cent of the total heat power requirements of 1909, and only 59.2 per cent of the 1930 requirements. The increasing proportion of modern heat energy generated by the use of fuel other than coal is apparent. If coal is to maintain its importance as a source of heat energy, the necessity for its improved perform-ance, in which preparation plays an -important part, cannot be stressed too strongly.

Jan 1, 1933

By J. R. Ross, J. B. Rosenbaum

Bureau of Mines research has resulted in the development of fluid- bed ion-exchange columns for recovering uranium from slime pulps. In pilot plant tests, slime slurries containing up to 6 percent solids were processed at flow rates of 10 gallons per square foot per minute with high uranium recoveries and efficient resin loadings. Uranium was effectively eluted in a laboratory fluid-bed elution column at eluate-to-resin ratios of less than 5:1 and eluate flow rates of 3 gallons per square foot per minute. Construction costs of mills using these improved ion exchange techniques are estimated to be 25 percent less than for mills using solvent extraction of clear solutions. For mills having a capacity of 2,000 to 2,500 tons of ore per day, the saving would be in the range of $2.5 million. In addition, a saving of about $0.80 per ton of ore in total operating costs is indicated.

Jan 1, 1973

By William Benzon

Bethlehem Steel's Cambria Division coal cleaning and preparation plant, operated by Bethlehem Mines Corp., is located in Cambria County, Pa., about 2 ½ miles southeast of Ebensburg. Here, above ground, is the most modern coal preparation plant in the world. Below the surface is a new coal mine also referred to as "the most modern that could be built today." The preparation plant has a capacity of 1370 tons of clean coal per hr. It serves three Bethlehem mines, Heisley No. 31, Revloc No. 32, and the new Cambria Slope No. 33.

Jan 12, 1965

By Lawrence P. Bonicatto

The steel industry's increased demand for higher grade pellets has caused the pellet producers to investigate methods of upgrading their product and the Hanna Mining Co.'s Groveland plant on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is no exception. The low grade iron deposit is a complex mixture of magnetite and hematite with chert, quartz, jasper and various iron silicates.1 Beneficiation is by Humphrey spirals and anionic flotation of the iron minerals.2 Flotation of the spiral tailings makes up about 75% of the concentrate, while a minor amount of concentrate (less than 3%) is produced in magnetic circuits. The concentrate is pelletized at the rate of 1.6 million tpy. The initial concentrating facilities were constructed in 1958 and the concentrate was marketed as sinter feed until a pelletizing plant was added early in 1963. Grade improvement soon became a high priority research project, and several methods of concentration were investigated.

Jan 3, 1968

By W. A. Wall, R. L. Kidd

IN present-day flotation practice, grinding of the flotation feed is carried to extremely fine sizes, 70 to 80 per cent minus 200 mesh being customary. The greatest flotation losses occur in the coarsest and finest sizes, but the losses in the very fine sizes are, of course, much the more important because of the large proportion of fines in the feed. These losses are particularly high in zinc ores so a study of the effect of size on the flotation of sphalerite has been made. The mineral used in these experi¬ments was a pure sphalerite, especially free from copper, from the Joplin district in Missouri. The sizes coarser than 200 mesh were separated by screening, the sized mineral then being deslimed on a Wilfley table. The sizes finer than 200 mesh were obtained by water elutriation as described by H. R. Bradford (M. S. Thesis, University of Utah, 1932) ; particles finer than 6.5 microns could not be obtained with the apparatus used.

Jan 1, 1933

By R. D. Groves, G. M. Potter, T. H. Jeffers

Experiments on ammonium carbonate leaching of native copper ores crushed to 1-inch size showed that in 30 days 55 percent of the copper was extracted from 0.7 percent copper conglomerate-type ore, and 85 percent was extracted from 2.1 percent copper amygdaloid-type ore. Cupric ions were not necessary to initiate leaching, and dilute solution containing only 2.2 grams per liter NH3 and 1.9 grams CO, was a suitable solvent. Copper was recovered from the leach liquor by solvent extraction and electrolysis of the strip solution. Cyclic testing of the leach-solvent extraction-electrolytic procedure is in progress on a 6-ton charge of minus 12-inch conglomerate-type ore assaying 2.2 percent copper. Oxygen is metered to the closed leach vessel as required by the leaching reaction. Initial copper dissolution was much slower than from minus 1-inch ore, but the leaching rate then markedly improved.

Jan 1, 1974

By John D. Morgan

Uncertain world conditions of the present time require that this country be prepared to meet: 1) all out nuclear war with attack on the U. S.; 2) limited wars; 3) political, economic, and/or pyschological warfare. Our present position as a major world power derives in large measure from our free institutions and great industrial productivity, and this productivity in turn depends on a continuing flow of raw materials-metals, minerals, fuels, and agricultural products. The U. S., with only about 6 pct of the world's population, uses from one to two thirds of the world's annual supplies of most metals and minerals. The U. S. strategic materials stockpiling program is designed to enhance our national security position: as stated in the preamble of the Stock Piling Act, to decrease and prevent wherever possible a dangerous and costly dependence upon foreign nations for supplies of strategic and critical materials in times of national emergency.

Jan 8, 1960

By Paul C. Merritt

For more than 100 years, British Columbia has been considered a mountainous mining province, rich with potential but relatively poor in actual production. Times have changed. Today, Japanese interests and money have altered the difficult, if not once impossible, economic conditions and market factors which until recently precluded any great growth of the British Columbia mineral industry. The mining boom now underway in British Columbia has carried the total value of mineral production in the Province to a record height in 1962 as it rang up a 27% increase over that of 1961. Breaking the $200 million barrier for the first time, total value of British Columbia's mineral output reached $229- 276,385. Of this amount, metals accounted for 70%; industrial minerals, 6 %; structural materials, 9 %; and fuels, 15%. The substantial increase is attributed to the record production of copper, iron, asbestos, natural gas and petroleum, in addition to the continuing high production rate and favorable prices of other mineral commodities.

Jan 12, 1963

By Carl E. Williams

A computer program has been developed which will locate the economic limits of an open-pit mine and also designate which ore and waste blocks to remove per period (years or quarters) to maximize the discounted cash flow over the life of the mine. A set of operating constraints was carefully selected so that the following functions are controlled: (1) the removal of overburden by preproduction and production stripping exposes a fixed amount of ore; (2) a constant manpower and equipment usage is insured (except for trucks); (3) the tons of mill ore, concentrate, and stockpiled ore are regulated; (4) the number and extent of shovel moves are minimized; (5) the grindability of the rock is considered as well as the variable haulage cost caused by variable haulage distances and depths; and (6) the size of the shovel working area is regulated. As many as 50 alternate schedules can be produced per computer run. They are arranged in descending order starting with the best solution.

Jan 1, 1975

By G. A. Savanick

Borehole (slurry) mining, where a tool incorporating a water-jet cutter and a downhole slurry pump mines phosphate through a borehole, was field tested in northeastern Florida as part of a US Bureau of Mines program to increase the domestic availability of critical minerals. About 1.5 kt (1700 st) of phosphate ore were mined at 23.6 t/h (26 stph) from a depth of 76 m (250 ft). The borehole was filled with water during mining for roof support and to assist slurry pumping. Underwater cutting was enhanced with an air-shrouded water jet. Mined cavities were backfilled to prevent subsidence after abandonment. Roof subsidence during mining was avoided only when the cavity was filled with water. Environmental monitoring before, during, and after mining included hydrological studies and measurements of water quality. Significant water quality changes occurred only in the zone being mined and were confined to the immediate area of the borehole.

Jan 1, 1986

By David S. Butts

There are many solution mining operations that use solar ponds as a mineral recovery step. Other locations in the world are now under investigation to recover minerals by solution mining but require the cheap energy of solar ponds to make the recovery viable. This paper shows a step-by-step material balance system that can be used in both simple and complex solar ponds. Use of this system will help the engineer determine if solar ponding efficiency can be improved or if solar ponding will work at all with a given set of conditions. Even the most complicated solar pond can be reduced to six flow streams. These are (1) feed, (2) exit, (3) leakage, (4) entrainment, (5) salts, and (6) evaporation. The equations developed in this paper will allow the solar pond engineer to easily evaluate the effect of each of the flow streams on the mineral production of a pond or pond complex.

Jan 1, 1985

By D. W. Fuerstenau

Recently R. J. Charles1 showed that comminution of brittle or semi-brittle materials in batch operations is described more appropriately by a variable energy relationship than by the specific relation- ships proposed by Rittinger,2 Kick,3 and Bond.4 That is, the value of n in the empirical differential operation which applies to crushing and grinding (Eq. 1) is variable. Independently, Holmes6 developed an identical generalized equaton for size reduction. The experimental data of Charles and Holmes show that the value of n is determined by the material and the comminuting machine and is constant for a given combination of these two conditions. The general objective of the present article is to extend the Charles-Holmes concepts to continuous ball milling. The specific objective is to analyze the operation of a vibratory ball mill dry-grinding chromite in a continuous open circuit and to develop an equation for the comminution of chromite in this mill.

Jan 12, 1959

By Glenn Southward

This describes a highly concentrated mining system consisting of a series of short faces arranged to get complete recovery of coal with the maximum protection for the men and equipment. A series of conveyors collect the coal from eight faces and discharge into mine cars at a central loading point on a main haulageway. The conveyor is sectional and, by a multiple-drive arrangement, the same standard parts are used to construct a unit of any length. THE. V system of mining used at the Norton mine of West Virginia Coal & Coke Co. was designed as a modified longwall with face conveyors, FIG. 1.-GENERAL DESIGN AND ARRANGEMENT OF FACES IN V SYSTEM. for use under roof conditions that would not permit regular longwall methods. This mine is in the Lower Kittanning seam, which averages about 6 ft. in height. There is from 20 to 30 ft. of slate and shale immedi-

Jan 2, 1924

By McHenry Mosier

SUMMARY MERCURY is one of the strategic metals of which the supply has been raised from critical uncertainty to more than enough for essential demands. Work by the Bureau of Mines has contributed substantially to increased production of mercury in the United States and to consequent accumulation of Government stocks. Other contributing factors have been higher prices for mercury and Government loans to operators. The Bureau has undertaken 13 exploration projects, 10 of which have been completed. This work has comprised 28,376 ft. of several types of drilling and 23,798 lin. ft. of surface trenching, and has indicated commercial ore containing 34,800 flasks of mercury and marginal ore containing 26,200 flasks, a total of 61,000 flasks; equivalent, respectively, to domestic production for 8 months, 6 months, and 14 months. As Government stocks are now adequate, domestic production (currently at the rate of 50,000 flasks per year) is gradually being curtailed through Government control of labor and operating supplies.

Jan 1, 1944

From "Knots and Lashings," of Oct. 10, 1918, the military publication of Canadian Engineers' Training Depot, St. Johns, Que. During the early hours of Sunday morning last (the 6th inst.) there passed from our midst one of the most affable and estimable officers who, during our brief connection with the Depob, it has been our fortune to meet. Sidney A. Lang was born in Ontario in the year 1884 and lived in Toronto for a number of years. He ahtended Toronto University, where he displayed remarkable ability, and after graduating followed the profession of mining engineer. Being young and endowed with the spirit of adventure, he followed his profession in the mines of Chile and Peru; he could speak Spanish fluently. Always a reserved man, of refined tastes, it was difficult to induce him to relate some of his adventures in those countries so shrouded in mystery and romance. He joined the Canadian Engineers in Toronto as a sapper and shortly after came to this Depot.

Jan 1, 1920

By J. S. Browning

The pegmatites of the Kings Mountain-Lincolnton, N. C., area constitute the largest known domestic reserve of beryl and spodumene. The reserve is estimated to contain 90 million tons of pegmatic material with 1,280,000 tons of recoverable Li2O (lithia) as spodumene.1 The pegmatites also contain 0.4 to 0.5 pct beryl disseminated throughout the orebodies. The pegmatites may contain a potential reserve of 240,000 tons beryl, equivalent to approximately 34,000 tons of BeO. Different flotation methods for separating beryl from feldspar or quartz, or both, have been developed by various investigators.2,3,4,5,6,7 On the other hand, published information is limited on concentration of spodumene-beryl ores. As the response of beryl and spodumene to flotation is essentially the same, a successful separation of the two minerals depends upon use of a selective depressant or a selective collector for one of the minerals.

Jan 7, 1961

By Walter R. Hibbard

Whether we have occasion to think of it or not, an adequate and economic supply of energy fuels is vital to each of us. It is interesting to look ahead at the way in which fuels from supplementary sources will begin to enter into the energy mix to help meet the long-term national energy needs. From 1947 to 1965, the average annual rate of growth of energy consumption was 2.7%, with total energy demand in 1965 being equivalent to 54 quadrillion Btu's. During this short period of 18 years, the cumulative output of coal in the U.S. was 9.6 billion tons; natural gas, 193.5 trillion cu ft; and crude oil, 45.9 billion bbl. During the next decade and a half the nation's energy requirements are expected to grow at an average rate of 3.3% yearly, with consumption of energy expected to reach an annual rate of about 88 quadrillion Btu's by 1980, or 63% over the 1965 level.

Jan 12, 1967

Jan 1, 1945