Contour Strip Mining
From RitchieWiki
Contour strip mining is a method of surface mining or in which bulldozers, power shovels, or stripping wheels are used to remove large chunks of earth in terraced strips in order to extract coal from a seam or series of seams on a hill or mountain.
[edit] Process
Area strip mining entails the stripping of earth over a large, flat area. The overburden is excavated from a large trench using heavy earthmoving equipment in order to expose the ore body. Once the ore or material is extracted from the trench it is backfilled and a new trench is dug beside it. This process is continuously repeated until all the ore has been exhausted from the mine site. Contour strip mining is essentially the same process as area strip mining; the primary difference is the technique is applied either to hilly or mountainous terrain. A series of terraces are cut into the slope of a hill. The overburden dug out from each new terrace then gets dumped into the old one previously dug before it.[1]
The primary ore extracted from contour strip mining is coal. Also called the bench method, contour strip mining is deployed when coal is extracted from a seam or series of seams located at high elevation on a mountainside or hill. To begin contour strip mining, a roadway leading up to the mountain has to be constructed. A bench is then excavated at the elevation of the coal seam to allow for placement of mining equipment and facilities. Drills are used to drill holes into the overburden located on the top of the mountain, explosives are placed inside the holes and then, systematically detonated. The blasted rock is loaded using shovels and front end loaders into large haul trucks for transportation to a fill area. The blasted overburden and loose rock is then often re-utilized as a landfill for reclamation purposes. The mining of the coal is carried out in the same way. Once extracted, the coal is crushed down into a size manageable for transport and brought to a processing plant for the removal of any non-coal material. Sometimes after the coal has been depleted using contour strip mining, further mining is deployed using augers to bore holes further into the seam to extract additional coal.[2]
[edit] Equipment Used
[edit] References
- ↑ Minerals. Connexions, 2008-09-29.
- ↑ Coal Contour Surface "Strip" Mining, 2008-09-29.
