Open-pit mining in a swamp...

HIGH-GRADE NI-CU-PT-PD-ZN-CR-AU-V-TI DISCOVERIES IN THE "RING OF FIRE"

NI 43-101 Update (September 2012): 11.1 Mt @ 1.68% Ni, 0.87% Cu, 0.89 gpt Pt and 3.09 gpt Pd and 0.18 gpt Au (Proven & Probable Reserves) / 8.9 Mt @ 1.10% Ni, 1.14% Cu, 1.16 gpt Pt and 3.49 gpt Pd and 0.30 gpt Au (Inferred Resource)

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Bentonstocks

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Open-pit mining in a swamp...

posted on Nov 13, 2007 05:42PM

As others have mentioned, not hard really...

First, you have to understand that the water, the swamp, is only on the surface, and is actually sitting on solid rock - the stufff they are drilling. The only reason why the area is wet is bcause it is of low elevation and flat, therefore without sufficient natural drainage.

When you are open-pit mining you are making a big hole. Only a small percentage of the rock being blasted, dug, and hauled out the hole would be removed from the site for processing. Much of its is waste rock. This rock would be dumped around the mine site to raise the elevation of the whole area and displace the water. A larger berm/dam would be created around the pit using this waste rock, and the deeper they go, the more rock thaye have to dump around the mine site and seal out the swamp from the mine site.

Getting things started would be littlle messy, but they would just employ D-11s to strip the bog/swamp from the surface of the pit area and push it away. Material/rock would probably be blasetd and hauled from a nearby area to create the inititial berm/dam around the pit area and very large slurry pumps would be used to keep the area free of water once the berm/dam is in place and has 'sealed' the swamp from the pit area.

There are many ways for them to get things started depending on immediate topography, and a multitude of engineering considerations. However, remember that they will have to build a road to the site. The location of NOT's discovery is not that far into the Lowlands (east of dry ground). As they haul and dump rock and gravel to make the road to the site, the end of the road could be a large circle or loop, with the planned pit area in the center of this very big circle. All they have to do then is pump out the water and get the D-11s in there to start stripping away the surface/swamp material.

With money and large machinery and you can do just about anything, including building islands in the sea, as they have done in Dubai. Not much, except maybe a beached ocean liner, would stop a D-11, and there are probably not any of those in the James Bay Lowlands... Although on second thought... That might explain some of the mag anomalies....