Wikipedia / Outline of mining
Wikipedia / Outline of mining
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to mining:
Mining extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, usually (but not always) from an ore body, vein or (coal) seam. Any material that cannot be grown from agricultural processes, or created artificially in a laboratory or factory, is usually mined.
Basic concepts
Geology of mining
Basic terms
Rock (geology), an aggregate material usually made up of a number of minerals
Ore, rock containing a desired mineral
Ore genesis, the geological processes by which ore is formed and deposited
Ore grade, the amount of a desired mineral or metal that a quantity of ore contains
high grade ores are rich in the mineral desired, low-grade ores have less of the mineral desired
Gangue, minerals within the ore that are not desired; these are removed during ore processing
Vein (geology) a geological formation that often contains ore
Overburden, the material on top of a given mineral deposit (in surface mining, it has to be removed)
Finding ore
Materials mined
Some examples of materials that are extracted from the earth by mining include:
Copper – see List of copper ores
Gravel – see Gravel pit
Sand – see Sand mining
Coal – see Coal mining
Oil shale – see Oil shale industry and Shale oil extraction
Gold – see Gold mining
Silver – see Silver mining
Slate – see Slate industry
Types of mining and techniques
Surface mining
Surface mining, mining conducted down into the ground, but with the sky open above
Open-pit mining, where the overburden is removed and put in a different location, leaving a large pit at the end.
Strip mining, where the overburden is stripped off and placed onto the area where the mineral (usually coal) has already been mined out, allowing the surface to be returned to roughly how it was before
Mountaintop removal mining, where the overburden on a mountain is pushed off the mountain into the adjacent valley
Hydraulic mining, using high-pressure jets of water to blast soil or hillsides apart
Underground mining
Sub-surface mining, mining conducted underground
Two main types of underground mining, classified by the characteristic of the rock being mined:
Underground mining (soft rock)
There are three directions by which an underground mine may be conducted:
Drift mining, mining horizontally
Shaft mining, mining vertically
Slope mining, mining at an inclined angle
Stoping is the process of extracting out the ore from underground, leaving a hole called a stope
Fire-setting, a method used in stoping by setting fires to timber and letting the resulting collapse break up the rock
Other methods
Mining equipment
Excavation
Heavy machinery
Steam shovel, used from the 19th century to the 1930s
Power shovel, derived from the steam shovel, but using electricity instead of steam
Excavator, derived from the steam shovel, but using hydraulics or pneumatics instead of steam
Draglines use buckets attached to long cable lines, rather than affixed to a beam
Bucket-wheel excavator, the largest moving land machines ever built
Blasting
Explosives
Gunpowder or black powder, used from the 17th century to the mid-19th century
Dynamite, used from the mid-19th century into the 20th century, still used some today
ANFO, used from the 20th century, and the primary explosive in use today
Blasting gear
Detonator, a small explosive charge used to set off the main explosive
Blasting machine, a device used to generate or send an electric charge to the detonators
Transport
Vertical equipment
Equipment for transporting miners
Engines used in mining
Liquid mining
Safety and environment
Processing
General methods of ore processing
Methods peculiar to gold placer mining. Gold is much denser than many other minerals, various methods use this to separate it out:
Gold panning, uses a pan in water to wash material
Sluice box
Drywasher, used where there is insuffician
Pyrometallurgy, using heat
Hydrometallurgy, using aqueous solutions
Leaching, using an acid (lixiviant) to remove. Commonly used for gold and copper
Amalgamation, using liquid mercury to extract the metal. Used to separate out silver and gold.
Electrometallurgy, using electricity to separate out metals
Mining waste
Spoil tip, a pile where overburden is placed (which has NOT been processed)
Tailings, waste mineral material (gangue) leftover AFTER processing
Slag, material left over from smelting
Acid mine drainage, liquid leached out of mines
Mining hazards and safety
Geography of mining
Mining, by country
Mining of specific minerals, by country
History of mining
Economics of mining
Future of mining
People associated with mining
miner, is a person who is involved in the act of mining
prospector, a person who is expert in searching for and assessing the value of
Mining scholars
Georg Agricola - author of De re metallica
Harrison Schmitt - American geologist, astronaut, retired senator
Organizations
National Mining Hall of Fame, in the United States
Leaders and innovators in mining
Archimedes invented the Archimedes' screw
George Stephenson inventor of the Geordie lamp
Henry Beecher Dierdorff American inventor of mining equipment
Herbert Hoover, engineer and writer on mining engineering (later President of the United States)
Humphry Davy inventor of the Davy lamp
William Reid Clanny inventor of the first safety lamp
See also
External links