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By D. J. W. Piper, T. Hundert, G. Pe-Piper

"Abstract - Potentially commercial deposits of kaolin are found in the fluvial Lower Cretaceous Chaswood Formation, the sedimentologically proximal equivalent of deltaic sediments of the offshore Scotian basin. The geological setting of the kaolin deposits has been interpreted from high-resolution seismic-reflection profiles and boreholes, and mineralogical studies on one reference borehole. The kaolin is a product of early diagenesis involving meteoric water below the water table. The distribution of kaolin is controlled by the presence of intraformational unconformities that were sites of ground water recharge, and are marked by the development of oxisols above the water table. Such diagenesis was facilitated by interbedded, loosely consolidated, permeable sandstone. The highest-grade kaolin deposits are found in areas close to river belts, where overbank muds were not sufficiently drained to develop paleosols, but where later uplift created intraformational unconformities. In the sandstone, meteoric water flow altered feldspars to kaolin, thus yielding commercial silica sand deposits. It also altered ilmenite to rutile, which is concentrated as secondary placers in modern rivers that have eroded the Chaswood Formation and tills derived therefrom. Sommaire - Des dépôts de kaolin potentiellement économiques ont été notés dans la Formation de Chaswood d'’âge Crétacé Inférieur, laquelle constitue un équivalent latéral en milieu fluviatile aux sédiments deltaïques du bassin de Scotian. Le contexte géologique de ces dépôts de kaolin a été interprété a partir de profils de seismique-réflection à haute résolution, de sondages, et d’études minéralogiques sur un sondage de référence. Ce kaolin est un produit diagénétique précoce formé par de l’eau météorique sous le niveau de la nappe phréatique. La distribution du kaolin est contrôlée par la présence de zones de recharge associées à des discordances intraformationelles marquées par le développement d’oxisols au-dessus du niveau de la nappe phréatique. La présence d’interlits de grès perméables faiblement consolidés a contribué à l’efficacité de ce processus diagénétique. Les dépôts de kaolin les plus riches se trouvent en périphérie des rivières, là ou les boues de la plaine d’inondation n’étaient pas suffisamment bien drainées pour permettre le développement de paléosols, mais où des mouvements verticaux subséquents ont crée des discordances intraformationelles. La circulation d’eau météorique dans les grès a entraîné l’altération des feldspaths en kaolin, générant ainsi des dépôts économiques de sable de silice. Elle a aussi causé l’altération de l’ilménite en rutile, que l’on trouve dans des placers secondaires situés dans des rivières contemporaines qui ont érodé la Formation de Chaswood et les tills qui en sont dérivés."

Jan 1, 2006

By David White

IN these days, when detailed investigations of stratigraphy, structure, and sand conditions so frequently result in the discovery of new oil fields, and applause from oil companies and the public, geologists do well to walk humbly, and punctiliously to admit that the geologic principles controlling the distribution of oil and gas have as yet been discovered only in part, and that what remains yet to be learned is probably vastly more than what is already known. The few experiments already at-tempted have been fragmentary, and somewhat desultory, and however positive each of us may be with respect to certain theoretical conclusions, many of the fundamental questions as to the origin and mode of occurrence of petroleum are subject to radical disagreement. Of the chemical changes attending the generation of petroleum from organic matter, little is actually known. Most of the postulated formulas are liable to be misleading, through ignorance of essential factors. Open-mindedness is therefore a prime essential at the present stage of our science. Nevertheless, adopting the hypothesis that oil originates in some manner fundamentally connected with the organic theory, and in possible departure from such open-mindedness, the writer will pay no attention to the so-called inorganic theory, since every attempt to apply this theory to the study of old oil fields, or to the discovery of new ones, affords cumulative evidence of its inadequacy. In this paper, some of the factors affecting the occurrence of petroleum that the writer believes worthy of consideration by the prospector for oil in any new region will be discussed. Some of these, which are less generally understood, will be considered somewhat in detail. Other points, the significance of which cannot now be determined, require more field study, and for that reason are here brought to the attention of the field geologist. On the other hand, certain theoretical points which do not bear especially on the oil possibilities of a new region will be given little

Jan 2, 1920

By Q. X. Yun, S. H. Liu

This paper provides a new approach to determine the opening layout in underground mining methods by means of genetic programming. Based on a set of random combination of openings, the layout of openings will gradually improve with the help of genetic operations, including reproduction, crossover, mutation and fitness calculation. The optimal solution will finally emerge according to Darwinian principle: "the survival of the fittest ".

Jan 1, 2002

By Reno H. Sales

EVERY mine manager, mine geologist, and every prospector in the field who appraises the future of mining properties does so on the basis of a theory of ore deposition whether he recognizes this fact or not. Wherever the ultimate value of a mine or prospect is dependent upon undeveloped ore, any estimate by an engineer or geologist necessarily involves a theory of origin of the deposit. In view of these facts the importance of a thorough understanding of the genesis of ore deposits cannot be overestimated. It well may be that the greatness of our country will depend upon finding reserves of natural resources as yet undiscovered. The genesis of ore deposits offers a fascinating field for study and investigation. This is attested by the large number of geologists who have written at length on the subject. For progress made toward a better understanding of ore genesis we owe much to Kemp, Lindgren, Ransome, Vogt, Emmons, Spurr, Graton, and a host of others. Within my own experience, I have attempted to apply in practice the various concepts and theories that have been advanced by these men.

Jan 5, 1954

By J. E. Spurr

CONTENTS. [ ] I. INTRODUCTION. The region here discussed is that part of western Nevada in which, during the last few years, discoveries of rich gold- and

Jan 1, 1913

By T. Kuhn

The Logatchev hydrothermal field is situated on the east inner flank of the rift valley of the MAR at 14°45?N and is hosted by serpentinized peridotites and minor gabbronorites while basalts are subordinate. Hydrothermal precipitates recovered from the Logatchev field during a recent R/V Meteor cruise include massive chalcopyrite chimneys, massive pyrite crusts, silicified breccias, abundant secondary Cu-sulfides, red jaspers, abundant Fe-Mn-oxyhydroxides as well as atacamite and Mn-oxides (Kuhn et al., 2004). Previous results of hydrothermal fluid studies in the Logatchev field are somewhat at odds with theoretical models of ultramafic-seawater reaction. Butterfield et al. (2003) suggested that the Fe component of orthopyroxene plays the more important role compared to olivine in ultramafic-hosted hydrothermal systems. This consideration is supported by the recovery of large amounts of Opx-rich gabbronorites and orthopyroxenites in the Logatchev field (Kuhn et al., 2004). A possible tool to constrain the contribution of the different rock types (ultramafics, mafics, MORB) to a seafloor hydrothermal system is the systematic analysis of 187/188Os ratios of the host rocks as educts and the sulfides as products. For instance, abyssal peridotites mainly display low 187/188Os ratios (<0.127); in contrast MORB and gabbronorites have radiogenic ratios of >0.13 (Snow and Reisberg, 1995), orthopyroxenite has ratios of about 0.174 (Büchl et al., 2002) and seawater has an ever higher 187/188Os of about 1 (Sharma et al., 1997). Therefore, massive sulfides predominantly leached from ultramafic rocks should have Os isotopic ratios plotting on a mixing line between the ultramafic rocks and seawater (in a 187/188Os vs. 1/Os diagram), whereas those derived from MORB, gabbronorites and/or orthopyroxenites will be plotting on different mixing lines.

Jan 1, 2004

By John F. Burst

For several generations now, the high alumina clayey sediments of Southeastern Alabama and Southwestern Georgia have supplied those regions with steady, mineral-based income although the impact of that income has been relatively minor until recently. Since World War II, mining activity has increased algebraically with over half of the total ore value in the Alabama area having been recovered since that time. The Georgia area production increases are even more dramatic. The trends are continuing and the next decade should see ore winning figures which will dwarf all previous production. It&apos;s time for the mining engineers to take note of this development as the mining methods, similar to the production, have developed rapidly and now offer challenges for the most competent professional. The development of mining techniques has followed a classic pattern. Beginning almost a hundred years or so ago, with the loading of weather-resistant surface boulders into mule-drawn wagons, mining methods have progressed to discovery of limited surface exposures in outcrop and eventually to stripping and development of non-obvious, subsurface deposits. Little by little, the overburden thickness of new pits has increased until, at present, pits with 100&apos; -125&apos; of overburden are being actively worked. Ground water problems in the Eufaula District are particularly challenging. At A. P. Green&apos;s J. W. Baker Pit, #l, in Barbour Co., Alabama, it is necessary to continually pump groundwater at the rate of about 400 gallons per minute from wells on the periphery of this large pit in order to keep the water table low enough to allow mining of the ore body.

Jan 1, 1972

By John F. Burst

Nanafalia aged bauxitic kaolins which straddle the Chattahoochee River in a NE-SW trending line anchored by Eufaula, Ala., and Andersonville, Ga., apparently derive from the same Piedmont source. A genetic interpretation is offered which describes the Nanafalia as a shoreline deposit in which the blanket elastics of the Andersonville area represent an ancient freshwater swamp and the lenticular Eufaula bauxites represent meander fills in an ancient tidal flat or barrier island. Mining operations in both areas are described and economic forecasts are presented.

Jan 1, 1975

By L. C. Woollacott

A computer-aid is described that is designed to calculate steady-state material balances for ore-dressing circuits. The program determines the material balance from a specification of the process condition. No mathematical models or data adjustment techniques are employed. As such the program complements existing simulation and material balance &apos;smoothing&apos; packages. The process condition is specified using performance indicators. These are significant parameters in the industry with which all practising mineral processors are very familiar. The program employs an equation-oriented technique for material balancing and so has had to deal with the difficulties peculiar to that approach.

Jan 1, 1987

By D. W. Dew, D. M. Miller, P. C. van Aswegen

The bacterial oxidation (BIOX®) process for pre-treatment of refractory ores for gold recovery is marketed by BIOMIN Technologies S.A. The process was originally developed by GENMIN who are still providing testwork, design and commissioning assistance to BIOMIN. This process offers an alternative to the more conventional roasting or pressure oxidation techniques with the following advantages: • Greatly reduced capital costs for small to medium size plants. • A relatively flexible and easily controllable process requiring relatively unskilled labour for operation. • Improved gold recovery. • A process that is environmentally friendly. The principal disadvantage of bacterial oxidation is the relatively slow kinetics compared to pressure oxidation and roasting, a plant residence time of 4 to 5 days typically being required to obtain complete liberation of gold from refractory sulphide minerals. Bacterial activity is also slow to recover from disruptions such as air supply failure or contamination by toxic species such as cyanide. Optimum plant performance depends on judicious management and sound training of operators.

Jan 1, 1993

By W. E. Wallace, S. -G. Xing, M. J. Keane, J. C. Harrison

"SummaryDiesel-exhaust particles from two sources were dispersed in aqueous mixtures of dipalmitoyl phosphatidyl choline, a major component of pulmonary surfactant, and were tested for genotoxicity. Diesel samples from the same sources were extracted with dichloromethane and transferred into dimethyl sulfoxide and subjected to the same assays. Both types of extractions yielded similar results in both the Salmonella mutagenicity assay and the sister-chromatid exchange assay using V79 cells. After separation of the samples into supernatant and sediment fractions, the activity of both diesel samples was shown to reside exclusively in the supernatant fraction for the solvent-extracted samples, and exclusively in the sedimented fraction for surfactant dispersed samples. These findings indicate that genotoxic activity associated with diesel particles inhaled into the lung may be made bioavailable by virtue of the solubilization / dispersion properties of pulmonary surfactant components.While diesel engine emissions are associated primarily with transportation, they are also very common in the workplace. Estimates for the U.S. are that as many as 1.35 million workers in as many as 80 000 workplaces are exposed to the combustion products of diesel engines (NIOSH, 1988). These occupations include, but are not limited to mining, agriculture, motor vehicle maintenance, fork lift truck driving, truck driving, and tunnel and bridge operation."

Mar 1, 1992

By Paul Doherty

The offshore wind sector is booming on a global scale, with the U.S. becoming a front runner in this highly progressive market. The Global Wind Energy Council has highlighted the exponential growth in both fixed bottom and floating projects in the years ahead, with global installed capacity set to exceed 300 GW by 2030. This growth in installed capacity is primarily related to fixed bottom projects, which have dominated the market for the past 20 years. However by the tail end of this decade, floating projects are likely to become

Oct 1, 2022

By Asfahani. Jamal, Randa Mohamad

"Abstract - Electrical and structural characteristics of formations favorable for sulfur occurrences in northeast Syria are described using geo-electrical prospecting methods. Simple (VES) and combined (CVES) Schlumberger vertical electrical soundings and geo-electrical profiling using a Wenner configuration were applied to the Teshreen structure. Six profiles (A, B, C, D, E, and F) at the borders of anticlines, where positive and negative structures are joined and salt formations have a tendency to disappear, were studied.Secondary structures, characterized by high apparent resistivity exceeding 3000 Ohm.m were located on each profile using a Wenner profiling configuration. These secondary structures are demonstrated to be favorable for sulfur prospecting by both drilled wells and vertical electrical soundings. Traditional interpretation of the 84 VES measurments is supported by data from 14 CVES measurments. The CVES technique is a powerful tool, due to its improved resolution of the electrical boundaries.Thicknesses and resistivities of the Lower Al-Fares, Al-Garibeh, and Al-Dibbaneh formations were determined through the interpretation of VES measurments. The same VES measurments were then interpreted using the Pichgin method, whereby all the subsurface tectonic features were determined for depth penetration corresponding to AB/2 = 1000 m. The integration of the first and second VES phases creates a clear picture of the subsurface, including tectonic, geometric, and geoelectrical information. In summary, the sulfur occurrences in the research area are controlled by tectonic paths that are well defined by geo-electrical methods. These diverse geo-electrical methods could be used successfully for sulfur prospecting in similar environments."

Jan 1, 2002

By Shianny Cruz Vasquez

Peru is a country with a complex physiography due to the Andes uplift that expose the different ore deposits. Actually Peruvian mining produces a variety of metal commodities and has one of the world’s largest mining. It is the third-largest global producer of copper, silver, zinc and tin. Within Latin America is the largest producer of gold, zinc, tin and lead. The importance of this research was to determine the toxic elements source and the current state of surface water and groundwater all the way from the top until it empties into the Tambo River and assess their, that impact have the toxic contaminants on the environment and the human health of the surrounding Communities and provide a management and decision-making tool to prevent socioenvironmental conflicts.

Sep 1, 2017

By Jamey B. Rosen

As Project Information Management Systems (PIMS) technologies develop, the range of projects to which one can apply these technologies grows while the cost to apply them shrinks. In recent years, technologies previously limited to large “megaprojects” (e.g., major dam rehabilitations) owned by major entities (e.g., the United States Army Corps of Engineers) with large budgets have been applied to smaller projects with less stringent specifications and more modest budgets. This paper will describe applications of PIMS technologies to small projects with limited budgets, including examples from levee construction, small-scale grout curtain installation, and diaphragm and secant pile cut-off walls. We will include a demonstration of how PIMS technologies can effectively analyze verticality data from koden and hydromill data streams to automatically generate models and as-built drawings showing overlap and deviation along the depth of the foundation. INTRODUCTION This paper discusses the application of Project Information Management Systems (PIMS) technologies to geo-foundations projects, with a focus on technologies and examples that are in a lower cost range. PIMS technologies allow contractors and other stakeholders to perform efficient quality control on their data, generate quick or automatic reports and as-built drawings, perform analyses to better understand their construction, and ultimately use their data to increase the quality of their construction. As PIMS technologies are relatively new to the deep foundations industry, and owner specifications on their use are generally viewed as complex and limited to large scale projects, PIMS technologies are frequently viewed as an expensive component that is beyond the scope of a smaller or simpler project. However, the same principles and techniques generally associated with large projects can be applied to projects at smaller scale. Furthermore, as these technologies develop both in the deep foundations and other industries, the cost of application is decreasing quickly making them even more affordable for smaller projects. The remainder of this paper provides some justification for applying PIMS technologies, describes some scalable data management concepts and workflows and then provides some examples of “low cost” applications of these technologies.

Jan 1, 2019

By Yunqing Zhang

Weak shales refer to those with lower strength, thinly- laminated structure, sensitivity to moisture and weathering as well as significant time dependent behavior. It has been said that many future coal reserves with good quality have weak immediate roofs. Therefore their geo-mechanical properties and behavior must be known before an appropriate support plan can be designed. In this study, four types of shales collected from underground coal mines were tested in the laboratory. Their modes of failures in underground were observed and correlated with their lab behavior. The failure mechanisms of thinly-laminated weak shales were analyzed by the means of numerical modeling.

Jan 1, 2004

By Guido Venturini, Giorgio Martinotti, Luca Delle Piane, Paolo Perello

This paper presents a critical review of geo-structural mapping methodologies applied to deep tunneling projects in complex mountain chains such as the Alps. Geological forecastings are often a crucial part of tunneling projects, which should allow contractees or contractors to assume their own risks. Despite this, often adequate methodological criteria are not applied in the realization of these studies, with consequent increase of costs and delays. A discussion should hopefully start in the world of tunneling in order to define a correct approach.

Jan 1, 2003

By Ivo Dreiseitl

Bottom sediment sampling by means of a box corer, as a direct method of deep seabed exploration for polymetallic nodules, is the most comprehensive way to obtain various types of geological information on points forming a network of stations. However, direct information is lacking from areas separating those stations and has to be approximated by interpolation or extrapolation, which leads to uncertainties. Sediment sampling with a gravity or piston corer can provide information on the superficial, up to 4 m thick, part of the sedimentary cover. As opposed to box coring, gravity or piston coring provides no information on nodule abundance. Information for unsampled areas can be gained by application of remote techniques of exploration. The techniques of choice in visualising nodule-rich fields, nodule-free areas, hard rock outcrops and other obstacles for seafloor mining involve using sonar and continuous deep sea (CDS) camera. Seafloor mapping can be rendered with two major sonar types: the side scan sonar used to obtain seafloor imagery and multibeam sonar for bathymetric data; the two types are usually combined and work with an intermediate frequency profiler. Photo-profiling by means of a deep sea towed camera provides a series of seafloor photographs, each supplemented with information on the area covered by each frame, including the nodule abundance. Remote techniques have been quite frequently applied by the Interoceanmetal Joint Organization (IOM) in nodule field exploration. Recently, geoacoustic techniques (side scan sonar + profiler) and CDS were applied for exploration of IOM?s first prime area H11 (5372 km2) on 6 transects. During the IOM-2009 cruise, a total of 295 km of geoacoustic transects and 344 km of photo-transects were surveyed. The data obtained were processed with the aid of earlier information produced by multibeam sonar surveys. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the advantages of remote techniques, particularly with regard to application of the towfish device, for geological and geotechnical applications in exploration for polymetallic nodules.

Sep 14, 2011

By Luis Anderson Orna Berrospi

El presente texto describe la función de los robots en la colocación de explosivos -en tanto apoyan el proceso de voladura en la mina o acceden hacia áreas donde es imposible para los seres humanos trabajar o sobrevivir, de forma que utilizan las nuevas técnicas de Inteligencia Artificial. Asimismo, estos realizan tareas operativas en menor tiempo que buscan optimizar el trabajo de los mineros y reducir los costos de producción.

Sep 1, 2015

By N. M. Cheimanoff

GEOCAD is an ambitious research program aimed at the development of a computer based system assisting the geologist and the production or planning engineer. BONANZA, its mining part, is a computer production scheduling tool (short to medium term) of particular relevance to complex orebodies. The principle is to simultaneously use a powerful information management system (CAD potentialities) and small expert modules integrating the exploitation context and the engineer&apos;s knowledge (Artificial Intelligence tecniques). As an illustration, a module of mineable block determination for underground exploitation is discussed.

Jan 1, 1989