PrintLesson 9.2: Elements of Underground Mines
Underground mines share common elements regardless of the specific mining method. Examples include pillars, stopes, and drifts. It is necessary to understand these words and to use them correctly. Perhaps the most onerous task in this course is to memorize these definitions. There’s simply no way around it. You have to memorize them and understand conceptually what they mean. You’ve done already for a variety of terms including burden, spacing, highwall, and box cut, among many, many others. The difference here is that you are being hit with a relatively large number of terms all at once. Of course, if you heeded my advice earlier in the semester, then you have been memorizing a few of these each week, and now you are in good shape! I won’t ask if you’ve done that…
Let’s dive into the definitions!
The text divides the definitions into three broad categories.
Deposit and Spatial
These terms are useful to describe the deposit and major features that define the mine within the deposit.
Directional
These terms allow us to communicate the relative location of something within the mine, or the direction in which an activity is moving.
Excavation
These terms capture the features that we create within the deposit through our mining activity.
I am not going to ask you to tell which terms fall into which category. I’m only trying to explain the underlying rationale for the groupings. Some terms are rarely used or are specific to just a few uncommon mining methods. I’ll try to distinguish those from the ones that are used widely. Obviously, you will want to know the latter quite well! I recommend that you read through the terms, and then refer to the three figures that follow to help understand the meaning of the terms, and then go back to the definitions with the goal of memorizing them. Ok, with this out of the way, let’s get to it!