Re: news/ full version
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posted on
Aug 17, 2009 01:19PM
Producing Mines and "state-of-the-art" Mill
Thanks animal.
Sublevel Caving Sublevel caving is usually carried out when mining of the orebody through an open pit method is no longer economically feasible. Mining now proceeds underground, underneath the open pit. At first, both a raise and a network of tunnels are made. At different sublevels, jumbos are used for long hole drilling, drilling directly upwards into the roof. These holes are then charged with explosives and blasted. As the roofs cave in, the rock from the ground surface will cave in to the underground as well. Scoop trams or Load Haul Dump (LHD) vehicles transport the muck, loosened rocks, to an ore pass where the rocks are lifted to the surface. Drilling and blasting takes place at different underground levels of the mine at the same time. As the blasted rock, muck, is continuously transported to the ore pass, more blasting will encourage the roof to cave in to the void and further into the drift. This is repeated until blasting, caving and transporting depletes the entire orebody. http://www.bcminerals.ca/movies/sublevelcaving.html