What factors determine if a company will choose to surface mine or underground mine?

What factors determine if a company will choose to surface mine or underground mine?

The location and shape of the deposit, strength of the rock, ore grade, mining costs, and current market price of the commodity are some of the determining factors for selecting which mining method to use.

What factors determine whether a mineral deposit is profitable to mine?

Deposit size, its mineral content, extracting efficiency, processing costs and market value of the processed minerals are all factors that determine if a mineral deposit can be profitably developed.

Under what circumstances might a mineral deposit be an ore one day and not the next?

Because market factors change continually, a given mineral deposit may sometimes be an ore deposit, but at other times it may be uneconomic and hence not an ore deposit.

What factors do mining companies have to consider before building a mine?

The most important factors determining whether surface mining can be done today are economic and technical— the price for the product, the cost of production, the quality and quantity of the deposit, the volume of overburden to be removed per ton of the deposit, and the feasibility of reclamation.

What are the 3 main factors that determine what type of mining method is chosen?

These include the following:

• Ore grade and recovery.
• Cost of infrastructure.
• Ore extraction.
• Labour and machine costs.
• Underground support costs.
• Geotechnical factors.

What causes mining waste?

Sources can include active or abandoned surface and underground mines, processing plants, waste-disposal areas, haulage roads, or tailings ponds. Sediments, typically from increased soil erosion, cause siltation or the smothering of streambeds.

What might cause a mineral deposit that had not been considered an ore to become reclassified as an ore?

What might cause a mineral deposit that had not been considered an ore? If the economy changes or technology improves, a mineral deposit may be reclassified as an ore. What is a rock? Any solid mass of mineral or mineral-like matter that occurs naturally as a part of our planet.

What are 2 things that a mining company must do before starting a mining operation?

The overall process can be broken into four major steps:

• Finding a Deposit. When a mining company is interested in opening a new mine, they begin with one of two steps.
• Establishing a Mine. After locating a deposit, additional testing must be done to prove it can be profitable.
• Mining.
• Refinement.

What are mining factors?

Major factors affecting exploitation of mineral resources in the world are as follows: (i) Richness or Grade of the Ore (ii) Size of Deposit (iii) Method of Mining (iv) Accessibility (v) Transportation Facilities (vi) Stage of Industrial Development (vii) Technology (viii) Other Factors.

What is the theory of the mine call factor?

The theory of the Mine Call Factor (MCF) is well-known but not yet fully understood. The definition implies that if the process of sampling, assaying, tonnage measurements in a mine and plant are perfect and there is no mineral loss at any stage during handling and processing, then the MCF should theoretically be 100%.

What makes an ore deposit a mineral deposit?

An ore deposit is a mineral deposit that can be produced to make a profit. Thus, all ore deposits are mineral deposits, but the reverse is not true. Many factors control the profitability of an ore deposit. We call the amount of known ore in a deposit the reserves.

How are radionuclides released into the environment during mining?

Radionuclides are released as dust during mining or from exposed waste rock stockpiles where they are least containable (and mostly airborne). Radiation can also leak into the ground, and nearby water sources after they have been separated into tailings, if the tailings are not stored safely.

What kind of health problems are caused by mining?

When companies break up materials during mining, the dust can release a variety of heavy metals commonly associated with health problems. As dust, these minerals (such as the asbestos-like mineral riebeckite) can be absorbed into lung tissue, causing problems like pneumoconiosis and silicosis, commonly known as “Black Lung” (Paul & Campbell, 2011).