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SimonRL Joined: 27/11/2005 Location: North Wales View Profile View Posts View Personal Album View Personal Files View all Photos Send Private Message |
Inside the world's largest iron ore mine
Posted: 19/06/2012 12:43:12 Reply | Quote From the Beeb: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18493153 -- Half the lies you tell ain't true IP: 220.255.2.25 |
rhychydwr Joined: 09/06/2007 Location: Cwmparc, Rhondda, South Wales, UK. View Profile View Posts View Personal Album View Personal Files View all Photos Send Private Message |
Inside the world's largest iron ore mine
Posted: 19/06/2012 16:49:21 Reply | Quote Looks like a quarry to me  -- Cutting coal in my spare time. IP: 82.71.20.254 |
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timbennett Joined: 20/05/2012 Location: ilkeston. derbyshire View Profile View Posts View Personal Album View Personal Files View all Photos Send Private Message |
Inside the world's largest iron ore mine
Posted: 19/06/2012 21:13:18 Reply | Quote quarry it is IP: 109.151.253.155 |
mcrtchly Joined: 30/08/2007 Location: Dublin, Ireland View Profile View Posts View Personal Album View Personal Files View all Photos Send Private Message |
Inside the world's largest iron ore mine
Posted: 19/06/2012 21:14:29 Reply | Quote Iron ore mines can be impressive. Last month I visited Sishen Mine in South Africa. The open pit was only 14km by 9km and Anglo American flew us up there from Joburg in a private plane! Most of the iron ore goes to China. IP: 194.46.201.186 |
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John Lawson Joined: 09/12/2010 Location: Castle Douglas Dumfries & Galloway View Profile View Posts View Personal Album View Personal Files View all Photos Send Private Message |
Inside the world's largest iron ore mine
Posted: 19/06/2012 21:16:35 Reply | Quote Looks like a quarry to me! Most modern mines are! Even modern underground ones are usually worked by a process of extraction called trackless haulage. Which basically involves using diggers, excavators trucks and the like which just looks like underground quarrying. Some of these machines are operated using remote radio control and if the operator of them enters a stope he can be severely reprimanded. In modern mining production is nearly everything! IP: 86.140.134.198 |
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Knocker Joined: 17/06/2008 View Profile View Posts View Personal Album View Personal Files View all Photos Send Private Message |
Inside the world's largest iron ore mine
Posted: 19/06/2012 21:17:03 Reply | Quote Unless they are mining pure iron its a mine (open pit maybe!). The difference between a mine and a quarry is a quarry's product is a usable raw material, a mines product requires further treatment and concentration to be usable. As an example the china clay pits down here in cornwall are open pit mines, whereas a pit digging up brick clay is a quarry. IP: 90.221.39.23 |
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Trewillan Joined: 21/02/2012 View Profile View Posts View Personal Album View Personal Files View all Photos Send Private Message |
Inside the world's largest iron ore mine
Posted: 19/06/2012 21:43:27 Reply | Quote That's an interesting definition, Knocker. Reminds me that in the days of the Mines and Quarries Inspectorate, they called opencast coal mines "Coal Quarries". Certainly fitted the M&Q Act definition, but sounded wrong to everyone else! In an opencast coal mine, the mineral forms a small fraction of the height of the working face/faces. In a quarry the mineral is the full height of the face. This illustrates your definition perfectly. IP: 2.99.131.161 |
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exspelio Joined: 02/05/2012 Location: peak district View Profile View Posts View Personal Album View Personal Files View all Photos Send Private Message |
Inside the world's largest iron ore mine
Posted: 19/06/2012 22:13:34 Reply | Quote And yet when I worked in a rock mine (flourspar) we where members of the quarry union, not the miners! 
IP: 87.127.158.157
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Trewillan Joined: 21/02/2012 View Profile View Posts View Personal Album View Personal Files View all Photos Send Private Message |
Inside the world's largest iron ore mine
Posted: 19/06/2012 23:06:55 Reply | Quote exspelio wrote: And yet when I worked in a rock mine (flourspar) we where members of the quarry union, not the miners! Probably because mining unions are really coal mining unions, and there may only have been one to choose from at that time. By "quarry union" do you mean T&G? IP: 2.99.131.161 |
somersetminer Joined: 19/05/2012 Location: Cornwall View Profile View Posts View Personal Album View Personal Files View all Photos Send Private Message |
Inside the world's largest iron ore mine
Posted: 20/06/2012 02:27:47 Reply | Quote John Lawson wrote: Looks like a quarry to me! Most modern mines are! Even modern underground ones are usually worked by a process of extraction called trackless haulage. Which basically involves using diggers, excavators trucks and the like which just looks like underground quarrying. Some of these machines are operated using remote radio control and if the operator of them enters a stope he can be severely reprimanded. In modern mining production is nearly everything! The extraction bit would be 'block caving' or similar. The haulage bit, trackless vs tracked is interesting, tracked still has its place where the roadways are fairly straight and long back to the shaft it may be the more efficient method, even beating conveyors (easier/quicker to change out a problem wagon than fault find and repair a conveyor). Gets to a point where it makes sense to sink another shaft though, down to economy..trackless loaders/scooptrams are not efficient tramming great distances, I would be interested to know how the cut off point is decided in practice. Theres some good photos on here of a remote scoop being operated at Wheal Jane, I'd guess that would be a UK first but worldwide who knows... Dont know about coal, but down here production always was the be all and end all IP: 90.217.81.239 |
Dolcoathguy Joined: 21/05/2008 Location: Camborne, Cornwall View Profile View Posts View Personal Album View Personal Files View all Photos Send Private Message |
Inside the world's largest iron ore mine
Posted: 20/06/2012 07:11:19 Reply | Quote Slightly off topic, did anyone hear the news on Countryfile about suggestions to build a huge underground nuclear waste storage facility in the UK (Cumbria?) They were talking about a vast underground complex covering many sq.km. So huge underground "quarries"/mines could becoming to the UK as well? -- Is it safe to come out of the bunker yet? IP: 194.126.226.123 |
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Knocker Joined: 17/06/2008 View Profile View Posts View Personal Album View Personal Files View all Photos Send Private Message |
Inside the world's largest iron ore mine
Posted: 20/06/2012 07:27:34 Reply | Quote The Bath stone and Portland Stone "Mines" got there first. With underground quarries in both areas. Talking about nuclear waste, have you ever seen the Nirex drilling chamber from the mid eighties at the holman test mine? IP: 90.221.39.23 |
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Dolcoathguy Joined: 21/05/2008 Location: Camborne, Cornwall View Profile View Posts View Personal Album View Personal Files View all Photos Send Private Message |
Inside the world's largest iron ore mine
Posted: 20/06/2012 07:51:09 Reply | Quote Haven't seen the Nirex chamber - is it big? What was the purpose behind it? Apparently Boulby Potash mine seems to be the biggest (underground area) from what I have read, but others may know different. re Nuclear storage - I should probably start a separate thread! -- Is it safe to come out of the bunker yet? IP: 194.126.226.123 |
grahami Joined: 29/01/2007 Location: Telford, Shropshire View Profile View Posts View Personal Album View Personal Files View all Photos Send Private Message |
Inside the world's largest iron ore mine
Posted: 20/06/2012 10:56:24 Reply | Quote In the mid nineteenth century the question of welsh slate mines vs quarries was a regular one with the mines inspectorate and the taxation people. If it was to their benefit to be a mine rather than a quarry, then that was what they claimed to be. Over time, therefore you will find that what originally claimed to be a mine subsequently claimed to be a quarry and vice versa. The inspectorate finally put their foot down and declared that if they were approached by underground tunnels they were de facto a mine... Grahami -- The map is the territory - especially in chain scale. IP: 212.219.117.102 |
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somersetminer Joined: 19/05/2012 Location: Cornwall View Profile View Posts View Personal Album View Personal Files View all Photos Send Private Message |
Inside the world's largest iron ore mine
Posted: 20/06/2012 13:06:50 Reply | Quote Dolcoathguy wrote: Haven't seen the Nirex chamber - is it big? What was the purpose behind it? Apparently Boulby Potash mine seems to be the biggest (underground area) from what I have read, but others may know different. re Nuclear storage - I should probably start a separate thread! Laser scan of Nirex chamber: http://emps.exeter.ac.uk/geology/research/facilities/surveying/cloudscanning/ unfortunatly just a screen capture, I'll try and get some decent photos up before too long. The purpose was, in simple terms, investigating the water infiltration in the Carnmenellis granite I think IP: 90.217.81.239 Edited: 20/06/2012 13:12:22 by somersetminer |
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