Development Mining Vs. Production Mining
There are two principal phases of underground mining: development mining and production mining.
Development mining is composed of excavation almost entirely in (non-valuable) waste rock in order to gain access to the orebody. There are six steps in development mining: remove previously blasted material (muck out round), Scaling (removing any unstable slabs of rock hanging from the roof and sidewalls to protect workers and equipment from damage), support excavation, drill rock face, load explosives, and blast explosives.
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 m – 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.
Read more about this topic: Underground Mining (hard Rock)
Famous quotes containing the words development, mining and/or production:
“The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow—one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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“Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man, and this standardization is called equality.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)