UNDERGROUND

METAL MINING

Presented by

Dr. N. RAJESHWARA RAO

Associate Professor
Department of Applied Geology
University of Madras
 What is Underground Mining?

• Underground hard rock mining refers to various underground

mining techniques used to excavate hard minerals, mainly
those minerals containing metals such as ore containing Au,
Cu, Zn, Ni and Pb.

• It also involves using the same techniques for excavating

ores of gems such as diamonds.

• In contrast soft rock mining refers to excavation of softer

minerals such as salt, coal, or oil sands.
Declines are often started from
the side of the high wall of an
open cut mine when the ore
body is of a payable grade
sufficient to support an
underground mining operation
but the strip ratio has become
too great to support open cast
extraction methods.
Levels are excavated
horizontally off the decline or
shaft to access the ore body.
Stopes are then excavated
perpendicular (or near
perpendicular) to the level into
the ore.
Accessing underground ore can
be achieved via a decline
(ramp), inclined vertical shaft or
adit.
 What is a Decline?

It can be a spiral tunnel which circles either the

flank of the deposit or circles around the deposit.
The decline begins with a box cut, which is the
portal to the surface.
Depending on the amount of overburden and
quality of bedrock, a galvanized steel culvert may
be required for safety purposes.
A decline may also be started into the wall of an
open cut mine.
What is Development Mining?

Development mining is composed of

excavation almost entirely in (non-valuable)
waste rock in order to gain access to the
orebody. There are five steps in
development mining: remove previously
blasted material (muck out round), drill rock
face, load explosives, blast explosives, and
support excavation.
 What is Production Mining?
Production mining is further broken down into two
methods, long hole and short hole.
Short hole mining is similar to development mining,
except that it occurs in ore.
There are several different methods of long hole
mining. Typically long hole mining requires two
excavations within the ore at different elevations
below surface, (15–30 m apart). Holes are drilled
between the two excavations and loaded with
explosives. The holes are blasted and the ore is
removed from the bottom excavation.
 Breast Stoping
It is a method of stoping employed on veins where the
dip is not sufficient for the broken ore to be removed by
gravity. The ore remains close to the working face and
must be loaded into cars at that point.
It is used extensively in the flat-dipping South African
gold fields but is little seen elsewhere.
This relatively labour-intensive method has seen some
innovations in terms of support methods and drilling
technology, but the basic methodology has changed little
over the years since the narrow flat-lying nature of the
reefs in South Africa make mechanization very difficult.
 Breast stoping – Kloof Gold Mines
 Situated ~60 km west of Johannesburg (26° 24’ S; 27
°36’ E), near Westonaria in the Gauteng Province.

 Underground workings accessed from surface through 5

shaft systems to a depth of 3,347 m below surface.

 Intermediate to deep level underground mines exploiting

gold bearing, shallowly dipping tabular ore bodies.

 Predominant mining layout breast stoping with dip pillars,

with a minor contribution from scattered mining.

 Mining spans and pillar widths depend on location, the

reef being mined and depth of working.
Kloof Gold Mine Main Shaft
 Block Caving
Block caving is normally the lowest cash cost per ton
underground mining method.
It does require substantial upfront development costs as large
excavations must be made to "undermine" the block that is to
cave, and large milling infrastructure must be established to
handle the big ore tonnages that a successful cave will
generate.
After the ore block is undermined, the ore block is fractured
over time by gravity and the pieces fall down the finger raise.
The size of the pieces passing to the chutes for loading is
controlled by heavy duty sieves or "grizzlys" on the grizzly level.
Schematic illustration of Block Caving
 Long Hole Stoping

Long hole stoping is a method wherein large blocks of ore can be

identified and if the surrounding rock is reasonably strong, this
mining method is generally the lowest cost mining method.
Access to the top and bottom of the ore block is established with
drifts or tunnels. A vertical hole (slot raise) is created within the
ore from the top of the block to the bottom.
Long holes are drilled to blast vertical slabs off the ore block.
Normally a remote controlled loader will pick up the broken ore
from the lower tunnel and take it away to an ore pass.
Once the ore block has been blasted and extracted, the stope will
normally be filled with waste rock to stabilize the void and make
possible the extraction of adjoining ore blocks.
Long Hole Stoping
 Cut and Fill Mining
Cut and fill method is used where the rock surrounding the
ore zone is too weak to use long hole stoping, or the sides of
the ore-zone are irregular, and drilling long holes would
create too much dilution or miss too much ore.
In this method, top and bottom access is again created, but
the ore is taken out in horizontal slices (or lifts) from the
bottom.
After a slice is blasted and the broken ore is carried away,
the void must be backfilled to provide a platform for the
equipment to stand and to support the side walls.
This process is repeated until the block of ore is extracted.
 Cut and Fill Mining

In wide ore zones, this method can be highly

mechanized, but in narrow ore zones it can be very
labour intensive, with a negative impact on cost per
ton.
Because of its higher costs, this method generally
requires higher grade ore than that for long hole
stoping.
Rarely, where the ore zone is especially weak, the cut
and fill method can be carried out in an underhand
configuration. Here mining proceeds downwards.
Schematic illustration of Cut and Fill method
The advantage of Cut and Fill method is that the
miners are working under a roof of cemented fill,
which might sometimes be stronger than the in-situ
ore.
 Drift and Fill method
Drift and fill method is a relatively expensive mining
method used where rock conditions are very weak.
Rather than risk opening a large excavation which
in weak rock conditions might be difficult to
support, ore is extracted by a large number of
tunnels or drifts that are mined through the ore
zone and which are then subsequently packed with
cemented fill.
This has the advantage that the rock roof or span
above the miner's heads that must be supported
can be as little as six feet across.
Neves-Corvo Cu-Sn Mine – Drift and Fill
 Largest operating mine in Portugal; most significant
base metal mine in Western Europe.
 Located ~220 km SE of Lisbon.
 Produces copper and tin concentrates by processing
massive sulfide ore and smaller quantities of shale-
hosted ore.
 High grade of the ore made it imperative to select a
mining method in which high recoveries would be
obtained.
 Structural complexity of the ore bodies and quality
of hanging wall, however, demanded use of a very
flexible stoping system.
 Commercial production began in 1989 using the drift
and fill mining method.
Drift and Fill method
 Sublevel Stoping
Sublevel stoping is a mining method in which ore is blasted from
different levels of elevation but is removed from one level at the
bottom of the mine.
Before mining begins, an ore pass is usually drilled from a lower to a
higher elevation.
Jumbos selectively drill holes into the roof of the drift and fill them
with explosives.
When the roof is blasted, loose rocks, or muck, fall through the drilled
ore pass.
A scoop tram or Load Haul Dump (LHD) vehicle transports the muck
to another ore pass where it falls to a crusher before being elevated
(raised) to the surface.
As the muck is taken out, more drilling of the now higher roof
continues.
 Sublevel Stoping (contd.)

The roof is blasted till it is so high that it can not be reached by a

jumbo. Then a jumbo working in a higher elevation drift is used to
intersect the stope.
After blasting, the ore falls down to the lower drift where scoop
trams or LHDs can drive in to load the muck and dump it at an ore
pass.
Drilling and blasting continues until the stope is completely
excavated.
Once the stope is completely hollowed out, it is backfilled from the
bottom, up. The backfill material used can be a mixture of sand and
rocks, waste rock with cement, or dewatered mill tailings (rejected
low grade ore from processing, usually fine and sandy).
Equipment used in Sublevel Stoping

 Front end loader or Wheel loader

 Load Haul Dumper (LHD)

 Motor scraper

 Pneumatic jumbo drill

 Rotary percussion jumbo drill

 The front end loader is one of the most widely used machines
in mining and is noted for its extreme versatility and payload
capacity to perform multiple tasks at a low cost.

It is
primarily
used in
applications
such as
material
handling,
digging,
and load-
and-carry
operations.
 Load Haul Dumper – Its uses
 The LHD used in mining must perform a primary
operation that will support mining objectives – namely,
getting material from the ground to the transport.
 LHDs must pick up and carry heavy burdens safely,
quickly and efficiently.
 They must have the power and flexibility to work hard,
and must be engineered extremely well to allow them
to do their job shift after shift, day in and day out.
 Efficiency must be built into them as energy costs
continue to balloon.
 They must also provide long service for a fair capital
cost, and allow a user an increase in his profit margin
while working in an industry notorious for its low return
on investment.
1
Load Haul Dumpers

1. Spare LHD in a mine

2. LHD working in a night shift
3. LHD in a mine stope

2 3
 Motor scrapers are large motorized machines
Motor scraper used for digging, hauling and leveling out
materials in underground mines.

Running on
massive
rubber tires,
these
machines
quickly move
large
quantities of
earth around,
unlike the less
popular pull-
type scraper.
A rotary-percussion drill is a type of rock drill
that uses both rotary and percussive action
in order to chip away rock and produce a
hole. Useful in mining applications, it can be
used for constructing tunnels. The
combination of rotation and percussion helps
the drill achieve a cutting and grinding
(rotary) action at the same time as a
chipping (percussive) action.

Usually these
motions are
hydraulically
or
pneumatically
driven.
 Room and Pillar Mining

In this method, ramps (inclined tunnels) are excavated to

connect the surface to the underground ore body.
Drifts (horizontal tunnels) are excavated at different elevations
to surround the ore body.
Next, stopes (tunnels that have direct access to mining the ore)
are mined to gain access to the ore.
All tunnels are excavated by drilling and blasting. Jumbos are in
charge of drilling the holes in the rocks and filling them with
explosives.
The loose rock, also called muck, is transported by either dump
trucks or Load Haul Dump (LHD) vehicles back up to the surface
for either waste disposal or processing.
 Room and Pillar (contd.)
In order to provide safe roof support for mining, pillars of
material around the rooms are left standing to hold up the
rock ceiling above. Some parts of the mine roof can be
particularly weak and fragile.
In addition to pillar support, a jumbo is then brought back in
for rock bolting of the roof to ensure safety.
When all the ore in the stopes has been transported up to
surface, some pillars can be removed, since they still have
valuable mineral content, while some must be left standing to
provide active support for the ceiling.
In some room and pillar mines, pillars are all excavated as
mining nears completion, to allow the natural collapse of the
roof.
Birch Lake Platinum Mine
 R & P mining – Birch Lake Mine
 The ore body has an average thickness of ~25 m.

 As the ore is extracted, empty spaces or “rooms” are

left.

 Multiple pillars of rock temporarily support the roof as

mining progresses.

 Eventually, some of those pillars are removed and

processed, as they contain valuable minerals.

 Stabilized waste rock and tailings will be backfilled into

the mine for structural strength and disposal to avoid
surface subsidence.
Birch Lake Mine – Another schematic view
 Sublevel Caving
Sublevel caving is usually carried out when mining of the
ore body 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.
S
U C
B A
L V
E I
V N
E G
L
 Sublevel Caving (contd.)

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 ore body.
Aerial view of sublevel caving subsidence reaching
surface at the Ridgeway underground mine
 Shrinkage Stoping

Shrinkage stope is a generic term used in mining to

describe the process of mining upwards from a lower to
a high horizon, leaving broken rock in the excavation
created.
The broken rock acts as a working platform, and helps
to stabilize the excavation by supporting the walls.
The technique can be used for ore mining in shrinkage
stopes, for raising, and for underground construction
projects where excavations of considerable vertical
height may be required, such as ore and waste bins,
crusher rooms, penstocks and tailrace tunnels.
 Shrinkage Stoping (contd.)
As the blasted rock takes up more volume than rock in
situ, some of the broken material must be removed on a
periodic basis, to maintain the required relationship
between the back (or roof) of the excavation, and the
level of the broken material in the excavation.
This is achieved by drawing the blasted material through
drawpoints on the lower level, which are constructed
before shrinkage begins.
Access to the space between the broken material and
the back of the excavation must be mainained for access
of men and materials, and for ventilation. Such access is
usually provided by previously installed raises, usually
equipped with ladderways.
Shrinkage stoping – Schematic illustration
 When properly planned and executed, shrinkage mining is
a very effective technique for ore mining and
underground construction. It is used where the hanging
and footwalls of the excavation are strong enough to be
self supporting, although artificial support such as rock
and cable bolts may be installed as shrinkage progresses.

Ventilation
door
 Ore removal in underground mines
In mines which use rubber tired equipment for coarse ore
removal, the ore is removed from the stope (referred to as
"mucked out" or "bogged") using center articulated vehicles
called LHDs.
 Jaw Crusher

Jaw crushers are used to crush and break the blasted

ore into smaller fragments that are later transported
out of the mine.
 Conveyor belts
The ore is then moved by conveyor belts to the desired place.
Ore transportation process
Some of the deepest mines
in the world
 TauTona Gold Mine, S. Africa
 One of the 3 Western Deep Level mines of the West Wits gold
field west of Johannesburg.
 Originally built by the Anglo American Corporation with its
2 km deep main shaft being sunk in 1957; operation began in
1962.
 TauTona means "great lion" in the Setswana language.
 One of the most efficient mines in South Africa with 2
secondary shafts.
 Has some 800 km of tunnels and employs some 5,600 miners.
 Air conditioning equipment is used to cool the mine from 55° C
down to a more tolerable 28° C; rock face temperature
currently reaches 60° C.
 By 2008, reached some 3.9 km underground, making it the
deepest mine in the world.
 Journey to the rock face can take 1 hour from surface level.
 The lift cage that transports the workers from the surface to
the bottom travels at 58 kmph.
TauTona Gold Mine, S. Africa
 LaRonde Mine, Quebec
 Deepest mine in North America.

 Mines gold, zinc, copper and silver ores.

 LaRonde's Penna Shaft (#3 shaft) believed to be

the deepest single lift shaft in the Western
Hemisphere.

 The new #4 shaft bottoms out at over 3,000 m

down.

 Open stopes down to a depth of over 3,000 m,

the deepest longhole open stopes in the world.
LaRonde Mine, Quebec
Operations in LaRonde Mine
 Mt. Isa Mine, Queensland
 One of the most productive single mines in world
history, based on combined production of
lead, silver, copper and zinc.
 Rich seam of silver-lead discovered in 1923.
 Operation commenced in 1924; 1,800 m deep.
 Merensky Reef Mines, S. Africa
Contains most of the known world’s resources of the Pt
group metals – platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium,
iridium and osmium; 2,200 m deep.
Merensky Reef Geology
Merensky Reef Mine Plan