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By William W. Adams

Progress made by the quarrying and related industries of the United States during 1939 included increases in the number of men employed and the number of man-hours worked and reductions in the death and injury rates per million man-hours of exposure to risk. Forty-seven States reported quarries in operation; in each of 26 States the industry employed 1,000 or more men. Of these 26 States, 16 reported lower accident rates than in 1938. Among the operations of various types for which separate figures are published in this bulletin, the limestone, lime, and cement groups reported lower accident rates. During 1939, 79,449 men were employed in the quarrying industries. The period of operation of the plants averaged 236 clays per employee, with a total working time that equaled nearly 144 million man-hours. Accidents at the plants resulted in 48 deaths and 5,204 disabling injuries among the workers. Expressed as frequency rates, the accidents represented 0.33 fatality and 36.18 injuries for each million man-hours of work performed during the year. The major cause of fatal accidents inside the quarries was falls or slides of rock or overburden; nine deaths were reported from this cause. Four men were killed by explosives and four by falls of persons. Nonfatal injuries inside the quarries were clue chiefly to handling materials; about one-sixth of the total number at all operations in connection with quarries and related plants were in this class. Flying objects also caused numerous injuries, although only about one-half as many as did handling materials. Next in numerical importance were injuries from falls of persons. Then followed accidents caused by falls or slides of rock or overburden and accidents caused by machinery.

Jan 1, 1941

By Boyd Guthrie

As the American petroleum industry surveyed its position in early 1937, it had many reasons to be optimistic concerning its future. The industry had emerged successfully from the depression, and for the first time since 1929 it had produced over one billion barrels of crude oil in a single year. The demand for gasoline and fuel oils was up, and reserves of crude petroleum and production capacity seemed adequate for the future. Although production of crude oil dropped slightly in 1938, the oil industry was still in a good position with respect to its supply of raw material, which improved economically in 1939 with the decrease of crude-oil stocks in storage above ground. However, by 1940 a threatening cloud (the invasion of France and its rapid surrender) had appeared on the horizon. This aroused Somme fears as to the industry's immediate future, and these fears were intensified the following year when the United States entered World War II. As the war progressed, more and more ships, planes, and vehicles were produced, and the problem of obtaining enough liquid fuels to supply them intensified. Hearings were held in August 1943 before a subcommittee of the Committee on Public Lands and Surveys of the 78th Congress to determine the advisability of passing legislation to promote the development of synthetic liquid fuels.

Jan 1, 1951

By R. T. DeWoody, J. W. Chester, W. C. Miller

The work was done to develop a relatively efficient muffler for quieting the exhaust of a rock drill . The exhaust of a pneumatic rock drill is the source of the major part of the noise generated by the drill . The exhaust noise can be reduced in a number of different ways , but this study involved only reactive mufflers . The reactive muffler can be simulated by an electrical circuit . Information obtained from analogous electrical circuits was used to design an efficient exhaust muffler for pneumatic rock drills . Electrical analogies proved to be a valuable tool in the design of mufflers .

Jan 1, 1964

By Henry Kreisinger, John Blizard, B. J. CROSS, C. E. Augustine

This report gives the results of 26 tests of a four-pass Edgemoor boiler fired with powdered coal at the Lakeside station of the Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Co. The tests were made by the fuel section of the Bureau of Mines in cooperation with the research department of the Combustion Engineering Corporation and the operating department of the Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Co. The object of the tests was to determine the thermal efficiencies and capacities obtainable by burning powdered coal under large central-station boilers, and the possibility of operating such boilers continuously at high efficiency and capacity without destructive effect on the furnaces and without difficulties in refuse removal. In any system for burning pulverized coal the furnace is the most important part because, to justify the cost of pulverizing, the powdered coal must be burned with higher efficiency than coal fired with mechanical stokers. In other words, it is the furnace that by giving higher thermal efficiency must pay for the installation, maintenance, and operation of the pulverizing equipment. No matter how simple the apparatus for the preparation of pulverized coal may be, or how simple the pulverizing process, unless the furnace is so designed that it can be operated continuously with high thermal efficiency, the whole system is a failure. For high thermal efficiency the coal must be burned almost completely with low excess air. But low excess air and complete combustion give high furnace temperature, which in turn causes erosion of the furnace lining and fusion of the ash; and removal of the fused ash is difficult. The necessity of complete combustion with low excess air thus brings with it these two important problems in the design of a furnace for burning powdered coal: 1, Prevention of erosion of the furnace lining; 2, easy removal of refuse from the furnace. For the purpose of solving these problems, the boiler tested was equipped with a furnace having hollow walls, through which about 60 per cent of the air needed for combustion passed before it entered the furnace. By passing through the hollow walls, the air cooled the furnace lining and prevented excessive erosion. A water screen was placed in the furnace about 3 feet above the bottom to keep the refuse deposited at the bottom from fusing and to make its removal easy. The design of the furnace, water screen, and burners was based on the experience gained in the previous cooperative tests1 with a smaller furnace, experimental water screen, and burners at the Oneida Street station of the Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Co. The boiler tested had 13,057 square feet of heating surface. It was one of eight boilers fired with powdered coal, and was designated as boiler No. 8. The Lakeside station is the largest central station in the world that burns powdered coal exclusively. The coal used in the first five tests came from Illinois. The fuel in the other tests -:vas a mixture of Illinois and Pittsburgh coals.

Jan 1, 1925

By A. Uiga

The U.S. Bureau of Mines funded a project which addressed objectives concerning irrigation of native plants and inoculation of native plants with vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizal (VAM) fungi. The specific irrigation objectives were 1) to demonstrate the performance capabilities of solid-set irrigation for reclaimed mineland conditions, and 2) to demonstrate and evaluate three irrigation concepts under two separate water supply conditions. The VAM inoculations were to assess irrigation benefits in establishing VAM relationships for transplanted native species. Following the seasonal demonstration (May to September 1983) at 3 separate mine sites, conclusions were made that apply to the 6 state Western mining industry. The demonstration sites were located in Montana, Wyoming, and New Mexico. Positive conclusions were reached for 1) the use of soil moisture sampling with or without irrigation, and 2) the selection of solid-set sprinklers as the irrigation method. The conclusions about the irrigation concepts and strategy were mixed, due to the short-term (1 season) nature of the project. No conclusions could be reached for the VAM inoculations because the study time was too short.

Jan 1, 1984

By C. F. McCarroll

The effectiveness of an industry's safety activities can be gaged best by the accident records of that industry. In an effort to gage conditions in the petroleum industry, and with the objective of helping to reduce the number of accidents in it, the Bureau of Mines from time to time has tabulated, analyzed, and published pertinent statistical information.3/. These reports have dealt with distribution, causes, and costs and related phases of accidents for various and collective divisions of the petroleum industry in several sections of the country. This type of study aids the personnel of the Bureau in planning the course of its activities in accident-prevention work and gives useful data to persons engaged or interested in the promotion of safety in the petroleum industry, which will aid them in their efforts to reduce the number and severity of accidents. A majority of petroleum operators and "service? contractors have acknowledged their responsibility to provide their employees with safe working conditions and to their stockholders for greater economic value of invested capital by establishing safety divisions within their respective organizations. Such divisions have a primary duty, namely, to see that properly designed and guarded machinery and working equipment are furnished the employees and that they are trained in the safest practical methods of performing their work. Some companies and individual operators, however, have shown little or

Jan 1, 1939

By Steven W. Schmauch

The Sugarloaf RARE II area (No. 5296) covers 11,100 acres in the northern part of the White Mountain Range, in the Inyo fictional Forrest. It is in Nevada, about 45 mi north of Bishop, California. A mineral survey was conducted by On U.S. burro of Mines in 1982 and by the U.S. Geological Survey in 1980-1982. The Bureau reviewed pertinent literature, searched Esmeralda and Mineral County mining records, obtained current claim information from the administrative agencies, and contacted claim owners. Thirty-six properties were examined, and 674 samples were taken from them to help assess win oral resources and potential. The Geological Survey evaluated the regional mineral potential by geologic, geochemical, and Geophysical surveys.

Jan 1, 1983

By Ralph H. Espach

Wyoming contains many petroleum and natural-gas fields, and more than 250 geological structures have been mapped; however, only about 85 have been found (July 1938) to contain petroleum or natural gas, or both, in commercial quantities. To January 1938 approximately 434 million barrels of oil and 915 billion cubic feet of gas have been produced, and it was estimated that proved oil reserves in Wyoming amounted to 300 million barrels.' The Salt Creek field, the largest in the Rocky Mountain area, alone has produced 64 percent of the State's oil and 46 percent of its gas. This field ranked thirteenth among the producing fields of the United States in total cumulative production as of January 1, 1938. On this basis it ranks with the Kern River and Huntington Beach fields of California and the Butler County fields of Kansas. The Salt Creek field has declined in relative importance; in 1937, while still the largest oil-producing field in the State, it produced 31 percent of the oil and 11 percent of the gas extracted from all wells in Wyoming.

Jan 1, 1941

By J. Douglas Causey

In 1987, at the request of the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Bureau of Mines studied a part of the 21,296-acre Million Hills Wilderness Study Area (NV-050-233) in order to evaluate its identified mineral resources. The study area is located in Clark County, NV, about 46 miles south of Mesquite, NV. The area is on the east edge of the Gold Butte mining district and has had minor production of copper and zinc from the Azure Ridge mine in the early 1900's. Assessment work was being done on the Esperanta claims, which covers the mine workings, in March 1987.

Jan 1, 1988

By R. S. Dean, John Gross

"In a preliminary report made a year ago it was shown that certain minerals when subjected to heating with water under high pressure and temperature were shattered upon the sudden release of that pressure. The main feature in which the results of this method differ from those of conventional grinding is in the differential effect obtained. The more metallic minerals, and hence the valuable minerals, are shattered more readily than are the gangue minerals. In other words, explosive shattering is unique among possible methods for comminuting an ore in that it wastes the least energy on the useless part of the ore. Explosive shattering, therefore, offers possibilities as a means for reducing grinding costs, arid it is this potential advantage of the process that makes it worthy of further experimental study. The first part of this paper is devoted to a study of the mechanism of the process; the, second part reports results obtained in toots on a selected list of ores to exhibit some of the advantages of explosive shattering."

Feb 1, 1933

Contract No. H0110929 was awarded by the U.S. Bureau of Mines in February, 1971, to DeTer Company, Incorporated, of Mountain Lakes, N. J. The contract provided for the modification of the contractor's Model 5000 Pressure Foam Generator to fit it for the suppression of coal dust in mines, a detailed testing program in a working coal mine, and for additional modifications and testing for the suppression of fires in coal mines. The contractual program was completed in April, 1972. The results of the dust suppression tests showed conclusively that the modified DeTer equipment effectively reduced the level of respirable dust in a working coal mine well below the present and future acceptable levels set by the Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969. The fire tests, carried out in a simulated mine entryway erected on the surface, demonstrated the ability of the DeTer equipment in suppressing fires of varying degrees of severity within an acceptably short time.

Jan 1, 1972

By Terry R. Neumann

The Olallie RARE II study area has volcanic cinder deposits with a sow potential for development. No mining claims or prospects are known within the study area, and except for common construction materials such as volcanic cinders and stone, no mineral deposits were identified. An evaluation of the geology indicates that metallic mineral deposits are unlikely to exist. No significant metallic concentrations were reported in samples from the area. The only resources in the study area are about 30 million cu yds (23 million cu m) of cinders in three cones. The cinder deposits in the study area cannot compete economically with enormous deposits of similar material in more accesible areas closer to markets. At the present rate of consumption, resources outside the area are adequate far into the future. The geothermal potential of the study area is being evaluated by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Jan 1, 1983

A general description of investigative work conducted by the Bureau of Mines at the, Missouri Valley. manganese deposits and leading to tonnage and grade estimates has been given in Report of Investigations 4375, part 1 of a three-part report of work done between July 1945 and August 1947. Basic factual information from which tonnage and grade estimates were drawn was derived through the drilling sampling of 238 large-diameter bucket-drill holes in 11 widely separated areas. Drilling areas were selected after careful reconnaissance, mapping, and consideration of earlier work done on the deposits by the Bureau of Mines, State agencies, and private organizations and individuals. Stratigraphic studies permitted extending the results compiled within the drilling; areas to outcrop and lightly covered manganiferous zones between an beyond drilling areas. The locations of drilling areas, drilling sections, and individual drill hues are shown on illustrations in part 1 f this report. The individual drill holes, aside from providing the basic information for tonnage and grade estimates, disclosed features affecting any future plan As exploitation. It in particularly significant that a large part of the visible outcrops is faulted end otherwise complicated by slides that give a false impression of the thickness, vertical location, and even the existence of manganese-bearing zones.

Jan 1, 1949

By S. J. Duda

Procedures for detecting and locating seismic sources are adapted to the case of entrapped miners. During an emergency the entrapped miner is likely to generate seismic signals, by knocking against the walls of the shaft. With a seismic array station deployed near the disaster area, the seismic signals can be recorded. Two algorithms are presented for the location of the source from the arrival times of a seismic phase: The first algorithm produces one, most probable location, under the assumption of constant velocity of propagation of seismic waves in the medium. The second algorithm is similarly applicable, however without any restriction on the seismic velocities in the medium between the source and the array. While the first algorithm uses an analytic approach, the second one is based on a trial and error procedure. The second algorithm gives locations with arbitrarily high accuracies, depending only on the accuracy of arrival time measurements and on the compatibility of the true velocity distribution and the assumed velocity model. The algorithm is shown not to require under certain conditions direct .arrival time measurements, thus eliminating a potential source of errors in the location of entrapped miner.

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 E. G. King

Heat of formation values for mercuric sulfide appear in all the comprehensive listings of thermodynamic data, but experimentally determined entropy values have been lacking. Consequently, all free energy calculations involving mercuric sulfide have been based upon estimated entropy values. This paper reports Bureau of Mines measurements of the low-temperature heat capacity of red mercuric sulfide (cinnabar) and the entropy value at 298.15° K. derived therefrom. The entropy value was combined with heat data to obtain free energy values for the formation of red mercuric sulfide from liquid or gaseous mercury and from rhombic or gaseous diatomic sulfur.

Jan 1, 1962

By Ronald W. Stingelin

This study undertook the development and implementation of a methodology for estimating the impact of coal seam interaction on the eastern bituminous underground reserve base as published in USBM Information Circular 8655. The effects of previous mining in multiple coal seam areas on currently mined and reserve seams are predicted as a percentage coal loss by an engineering assessment model called the Coal Loss Calculation Model. The model utilizes twelve input variables easily derivable from mine maps or other existing data sources and calculates the effects of subsidence and high-stress due to remnant pillars in the previously mined seam. Extensive literature review resulted in the identification, definition, and quantification of the critical variables of seam interaction. Export opinion surveys were made of mining experts, MESA mine inspectors, and coal mine operators. Statistical analysis was used to establish the redundancy of the critical variables and to develop a total coal loss prediction algorithm. A regional analysis resulted in the production of a series of thematic maps on coal characteristics and distribution. A derivative map showing the areas of commonality within the eastern bituminous coal region served as the basis for implementation of the coal loss calculation model. The model was developed and tested using data from four coal mines in western Pennsylvania and southern West Virginia.

Jan 1, 1976

By E. L. McHugh, J. M. Girard

This paper discusses the results of two recent case studies in which high-tech prototype instruments were used. The first case study describes the results of a ground-based hyperspectral imaging tool used to map the geology of an open-pit mine highwall. The second case study outlines the use of interferometric synthetic aperture radar and how this type of radar can be used in a variety of geotechnical situations. These case studies are part of an on-going research project at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s (NIOSH) Spokane Research Laboratory. The project objective is to implement engineering controls and design methods in order to reduce the number of injuries and fatalities associated with slope failures at mining operations. Project personnel are hopeful that these new developments in technology will lead to better geotechnical monitoring and design in slope stability and other important areas of rock mechanics.

By G. Andrews

This case study details the process that was used for project planning and permitting for the Greens Creek Mine, located near Juneau Alaska, as seen through the eyes of one of the primary environmental consultants. This case shows how a Company could involve the public and the agencies in the early 1980's and develop a project sensitive to concerns expressed with a high level of environmental protection. Comparisons are made to the current environmental permitting situation. Initial baseline studies performed during the exploration phase provided helpful information for more detailed environmental work in 1980-1981 as planning and permitting formally got underway. Since the mine was in a National Monument and abuts up to a designated wilderness, the Monument Manager administered the project for the lead agency, the USDA Forest Service. Planning and permitting progressed smoothly to a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) in 1983. Metal prices were depressed when the FEIS was completed and the project permitting proceeded slowly. Ownership changed several times in the mid-1980's. New owners re-evaluated the project and suggested five changes that required a supplemental EA prior to development. The project was fully permitted and started construction in 1988. Operation began in 1989. Today the environmental process in southeast Alaska is now much more complex, detailed, expensive, and time consuming than in the early 1980's. Significant issues discussed that may impede development and operation include overlapping agency jurisdictions, personal agendas of agency staff, conflicts between agencies that impede project progress, changing regulations, and a well organized environmental opposition.

Jan 1, 1993

By G. W. Jones

"INTRODUCTION As part of its work in promoting safety, the Bureau of Mines is investigating various means of eliminating or mitigating the explosion hazards of combustible gases encountered in mining and industry. Information has been obtained and a procedure developed whereby the explosibility of many complex gaseous mixtures may be calculated in a rather simple manner without the necessity of performing laborious laboratory experiments. An earlier publication 3/ described the method of determining by calculation the limits of inflammability of gaseous mixtures, including methane, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and oxygen. The information published in the above report permitted calculation of the limits of inflamnability of such gases as are liberated by mine fires, gases from explosives, automobile exhaust gases, gases present after mine explosions, blast-furnace gas, and other gases of similar type.Gases liberated in certain potash mines in the western part of the United States sometimes contain ethane, in addition to the gases named. An investigation was made to obtain data from which the limits of inflammability of such gaseous mixtures could be determined by calculation. 4/Similar data have been Published covering all types of natural gases containing wide ranges of concentration of nitrogen and carbon dioxide.5/"

Dec 1, 1944