|
InfoMine will be exhibiting at MINExpo 2004 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada USA during the period September 27-30, 2004.MINExpo, is organized by the USA's National Mining Association every four years. It is arguably the biggest mining show in the world - you can find manufacturers of equipment, suppliers of parts and products. You will also meet consultants,providers of mining-related services for exploration, mine development,production, processing/preparation, materials handling, environmental
remediation, safety, and much more. Come by and meet Greg Fenrick and Graham Baldwin at the InfoMine booth, #3842.
InfoMine will also be exhibiting at the 2004 Resource Investment Conference, in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada during the period October 3-4, 2004. This conference is one of a suite of annual mining investment conferences put on in Canada each year by Cambridge House International Inc. It features small cap opportunities in gold, pgms, diamonds, oil and gas, industrial and emerging growth situations. Come by the InfoMine booth and meet Neil MacRae.
Mining and the Environment: A tale of two companies.
A prominent topic that made headlines in August was mining and the environment. Two of North America's largest mining companies namely, Newmont Mining, the world's leading gold mining company and Teck Cominco, a base metals miner and the world's largest miner of zinc, have found themselves deeply embroiled in disputes accusing them of poor environmental practices and shirking of their environmental responsibilities.
Meanwhile, Phelps Dodge, one of the world's largest miners of copper made headlines early in the month pleading guilty to violating wildlife laws in the deaths of 43 migratory birds near the company's Arizona mine. While, a headache for Phelps, the news pails in significance relative to that which challenges Teck Cominco in British Columbia / USA border region and Newmont in Indonesia.
Late in July, the Colville Confederated Tribes made good on their threat to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to declare Lake Roosevelt in Washington State a Superfund site by suing Teck Cominco claiming that the Canadian miner is responsible for pollution that plagues a lake bordering on their land and is failing to make amends. Teck Cominco operates the world's largest integrated lead-zinc smelting and refining complex at Trail in British Columbia, the alleged source of the pollution.
Teck Cominco has filed a legal motion to dismiss the lawsuit accusing the native group of refused to discuss a co-operative resolution to the dispute. Teck Cominco is reportedly willing to take responsibility for cleaning up pollution on the U.S. portion of the Columbia River and views the tribe's action as delaying those efforts.
Talks broke down recently when U.S. officials labeled Teck Cominco's pollution studies as inadequate and demanded that the company submit to the Superfund law, which Teck Cominco views as being biased against it and other non - U.S. companies. Teck Cominco is requesting that the governments of the U.S. and Canada create an agreement that addresses concerns respecting Lake Roosevelt. Teck Cominco maintains that the pollution originated from several sources and the company shouldn't be saddled with all the costs.
Newmont Mining has environmental problems of its own, in Indonesia. Newmont has suspended ore processing at its mine in Indonesia's North Sulawesi province, which it maintains is in accordance with its work plan. Others believe that the shut down was prompted by allegations of contamination of the water supply around the mining site, causing some villagers to suffer from mercury poisoning.
Tests performed by the Indonesian police have reportedly confirmed that Buyat Bay in Minahasa is contaminated with heavy metals. Newmont maintains that all reliable results from independent and accredited laboratories verify that Buyat Bay is not contaminated. Newmont also claims that during the late 1980s, the Minahasa Contract of Work area was inundated by illegal Indonesian miners who exploited shallow oxide and colluvial gold discoveries and rediscovered pre-war Dutch mines. In the course of this activity, a great deal of mercury together with other pollutants was washed down the creeks and rivers feeding into the Bay.
Whatever the outcome is of these disputes, Teck Cominco, Newmont Mining and many other miners today realize the consequences of employing substandard environmental practices but continue to be the focus of everything and anything wrong with the mining industry. It's unfortunate that, regardless of their efforts of large and small companies alike, mining continues to bear the brunt of criticism for poor environmental practices, mostly by the misinformed.
For complete coverage, subscribe today for a News Plus or higher Infomine Subscription.
- Translation Tools
Click on this Google link to get rough translations at the click of a button in English, German, Spanish, Potugese,French and Italian.
- The 16 Best-ever Freeware Utilities
This link shows 16 free software utilities that do the same job (or better) as an expensive commercial product.
CAREERS
Welcome to three new Employers of Choice: Mount Polley Mine, Mcintosh Engineering and Century Mining Corporation. Our Employers of Choice do heavy recruiting and their participation is further proof that the mining industry is in a strong growth phase right now. Does anyone remember the Elvis song - "Fever"?
Ev'rybody's got the Fever - that is something you all know
Fever isn't such a new thing - Fever started long ago
Yes, the fever is back - and it's contagious!
New EduMine Site Enrollment for Diavik Diamond Mine
The Diavik Diamond Mine is an unincorporated joint venture between Diavik Diamond Mines Inc. and Aber Diamond Mines Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Aber Diamond Corporation of Toronto, Ontario. Diavik Diamond Mines Inc. (DDMI), based in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, is a subsidiary of Rio Tinto plc of London, England and operates the Diavik Diamond Mine. The Mine is located in Canada's remote North, 300 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife, and employs approximately 700 personnel. Annual diamond production will peak at approximately 8 million carats. Site Enrollment gives Diavik personnel unrestricted access to all EduMine resources, including online courses and tools, technical publications database, and mining event listings. Select Diavik Diamond Mine in the drop-down box under Mine Site Campuses above for more information on the Diavik campus. For information on the Site Enrollment option, click on this link.
Found in The Globe And Mail, Friday June 6, 1997
Report On Business:
Golden words Buzz caught a couple of Canadian mining folks
in conversation at a New York conference:
Miner One: "Everyone should be hiring the Bre-X geologists."
Miner Two: "Yeah, sure."
Miner One: "No, seriously. They work cheap and they bring their
own gold."
"I wanted the gold, and I sought it;
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy,
I fought it;
I hurled my youth into a grave.
I wanted the gold, and I got it--
Came out with a fortune last fall,—
Yet somehow life's not what I thought it,
And somehow the gold isn't all.—
Robert W. Service — The Spell of the Yukon
|
 |
Here's a sample of the information on "Quartz" available on InfoMine. This is just an example of how our search provides excellent and pertinent results for any topic you wish to explore. Why not try your own favorite topic now? |
The Diamond in the Rough
This article is copyrighted by the author and all rights reside with the author, T.L. Jones.
At first, the mine superintendent thought he was the brunt of a practical joke. While making a routine check of the premises at the end of the day, Frederick Wells caught the reflection of the setting sun glimmering off the wall of the mine shaft. Upon closer inspection, he discovered a magnificent stone. Afraid of being teased by his peers, he had the gem checked privately before taking it to the manager's office. Within hours, he found out that he had uncovered the largest diamond ever—3,106 carats.
 Wells made history—and $10,000—for his discovery. Christened the 'Cullinan' diamond after Thomas Cullinan, founder of the Premier Diamond Mining Co. in South Africa, where the stone was found, the gem was bought by the Transvaal government and was to be a gift for Britain's King Edward VII, as a token of esteem on his 66th birthday.
The precautions surrounding the transport of the diamond were monumental. Armed guards escorted the boxed stone by train to Capetown, there they boarded a ship to Southampton, then proceeded by train to London, with final delivery in the vaults of the Bank of England. Photographers followed close behind the entourage. Newspapermen followed close behind the photographers. What nobody--not even the guards--ever knew, was that the stone in the box was a dummy. The real Cullinan had been sent to London via registered mail.
Cutting the huge, rough Cullinan as perhaps the greatest challenge ever facing a diamond cutter, and the job was entrusted to the foremost diamond cutter of the day, Joseph Asscher of Amsterdam.
Two months of intense preparation went into the project. Special tools had to be made for the cleaving and polishing of the great stone. The rough gem had to be microscopically examined from every angle, for the slightest miscalculation would result in this incredible stone shattering into a million pieces. (No doubt in the cutter Asscher's mind, the shattering of his great career at the same time.)
The day was February 10, 1908. The King's representatives were in attendance as were notary publics to officially record the event. Standing by were a doctor and a two nurses. The room was quiet. Asscher inserted a steel blade into the groove. No one dared to breathe. He lifted his mallet, and after what must have seemed like an eternity, he struck the blade sharply. It shattered, but the diamond didn't budge. Keeping his emotions tightly in check, Asscher went through the painstaking motions once again. And this time, success. The stone split exactly as he had planned. Asscher promptly fainted, and spent the next two weeks in the hospital recovering from nervous exhaustion. Further cleaving, sawing and polishing of the Cullinan produced nine major stones, 96 minor ones, and 10 carats of polished fragments. The largest, named Cullinan I, or "The Great Star of Africa" is the largest cut diamond in existence. At 530 carats, it is a magnificent pear-shaped gem, set in the royal sceptre of the British Crown Jewels.
If you have any stories or wish to submit something related to the Cullinan Diamond. Please send submissions to Gareth Holden and he will be happy to post them in the next issue of the InfoMiner. St. Barbara
 After our story on St. Barbara last month we recieved a very nice picture of a shrine from a gentleman by the name of Brian Higgs. He also agreed to submit a small story on how he encountered this shrine....
I noticed the item about Saint Barbara in the InfoMiner and thought I'd write to you about my visit to Switzerland this past July to attend the International Group for Hydraulic Efficiency Measurement conference on water flow measurement in hydroelectric power stations
It included a tour of numerous dams, and we walked into a massive underground tunnel, which accesses the generators of KWA Kraftwerk Amsteg power station. The "light at the end of this tunnel" turned out to be a shrine to Saint Barbara left by the construction workers who built it. I managed to take the attached picture.
Amsteg is 14km (9 miles) S of Altdorf, in central Switzerland, on the St. Gotthard route, and the hydro power station is one of many owned by SBB, the Swiss Railway, which consumes enormous amounts of electric power operating their passenger and freight trains.
Near Amsteg, SBB are presently constructing a 57km long twin-tube, the Gotthard Base Tunnel, which will be the longest rail tunnel in the world.
Brian Higgs
Cascadia Instrumentation Inc.
#904 - 22588 Royal Crescent
Maple Ridge BC V2X 3T6 CANADA
Phone: 604-466-9807 Fax: 604-466-9847
brian-higgs@cascadia-instrumentation.com
www.cascadia-instrumentation.com
|
Meet Neil MacRae!
