China
Africa
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
Methods for Control of Surface Water and Groundwater
Published in Pat M. Cashman, Martin Preene, Groundwater Lowering in Construction, 2020
Most open pit mines are excavated in rock (the principal exception being shallow open pits to extract sand and gravel). Groundwater will enter an open pit mine below groundwater level wherever it intercepts permeable strata or features (such as fracture zones or faults) – groundwater problems in rock are described in Chapter 8. Open pit mines are typically much deeper and larger than construction excavations; it is not unusual for open pit mines to be more than a kilometre in length and several hundred metres in depth. The period for which a mine may require dewatering is typically several years, again much longer than required for most construction excavations.
Some aspects regarding the Romanian open pit lignite mining impact on soil
Published in G. N. Panagiotou, T. N. Michalakopoulos, Mine Planning and Equipment Selection 2000, 2018
The lignite deposit is situated in sedimentary rocks of sand, clay and shale type and has the shape of a seam pack with variable thickness, separated by sterile insertions. (See Figure 2). The deposit is mined in five mining basins, namely Rovinari, Motru, JilŢ, Berbeşti and Husnicioara, both in open pit and undergound mines. Because of technical-mining conditions, the open pit mining is predominant, the future trends being the progressive closure of underground mines, in such a manner, that beginning with the year 2005, the entire mining will be performed in open pit mines.
Mining and Drilling
Published in Cameron La Follette , Chris Maser, Sustainability and the Rights of Nature, 2017
Cameron La Follette , Chris Maser
Some of the biggest open-pit mines are in the United States—the largest in the world being the Hull Rust open pit iron mine near Hibbing, Minnesota. The pit is 5 miles long, 2 miles wide, and 535 feet deep. It covers more than 2,000 acres. The deepest mining pit is the Bingham Canyon Mine near Salt Lake City, which is nearly 3 miles across, three-quarters of a mile deep and removes 450,000 tons of rock every day (Figure 15.2).28 Although Bingham Canyon is mainly a copper mine, it also produces gold.
Short-term planning for open pit mines: a review
Published in International Journal of Mining, Reclamation and Environment, 2019
Michelle Blom, Adrian R. Pearce, Peter J. Stuckey
An open-pit mine consists of a set of pits, in which horizontal layers of material (benches) are extracted from the top down. Open-pit mining is suitable for orebodies located close to the surface, with underground mining techniques typically applied where this is not the case. Metal ores including iron, copper and gold, and other materials such as coal, diamonds, limestone and uranium, are commonly extracted using the open-pit mining method. A hierarchy of planning activities take place over the life of an open-pit mine – from operational or day-to-day decision-making on the positioning of equipment, truck dispatch and control of crusher feed characteristics or quality; to long-term and strategic decision-making on the timing of expansions, the introduction or building of new infrastructure and the opening or closing of regions of the mine site. At each horizon (day-to-day to life-of-mine), a planner selects blocks or regions of material (from a block model) to be extracted in each period (or across multiple periods) of the horizon. The nature of this block model, and the timespan represented by these time periods, varies across the planning hierarchy.
Real-time truck dispatching in open-pit mines
Published in International Journal of Mining, Reclamation and Environment, 2023
Xiaowei Wang, Qi Dai, Yougang Bian, Guotao Xie, Biao Xu, Zeyu Yang
The mining process of open-pit mines includes these steps: drilling and blasting, material loading, hauling, and dumping. Many previous studies have shown that the cost of haulage accounts for approximately 60% of the total operating cost of the open-pit mine. Especially in large open-pit mines, haulage costs have notably contributed to the increment of capital and operating costs [1,2] so reducing the cost of the material transportation is the key to reduce the operating cost of the open-pit mine.