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Interesting Fact: The current HOT job that has received the most "attention" has received over 3000 accesses! On average a HOT job can expect about 400 accesses in a two-week period. So you know that your advertised position is getting a lot of exposure.
CareerMine welcomes our latest "Employers of Choice" - namely Dynatec, Mount Polley and Century Mining. Please look at their current openings and all our other Employers of Choice career opportunities. We work closely with our Employers of Choice to help them with their recruiting needs. To find out more about becoming an Employer of Choice please email Renee and she will be happy to assist.
Mining in September-October: On strike
Strike action in Africa as well as North and South America has been a flavour of the month, as far as significant developments in the mining industry are concerned.
The markets for platinum were recently shaken by strike action prompted by the country's labour unions pushing for across the board wage increases at the world's largest and second largest miners of the precious metal. Workers from Impala Platinum Holdings, the world's second largest platinum producer, returned to work in 12th October after the company agreed to a 8% across the board wage increase. On the 14th October the National Union of Mineworkers agreed to a revised offer from Anglo American Platinum, the world's largest platinum producer.
South Africa's largest gold producer and the world's sixth biggest gold miner Harmony Gold has also been dogged by pending strike action. The South African miner is the focus of labour disputes as a consequence of restructuring its marginal South African mines.
Elsewhere in Africa, a Zimbabwean nationwide strike involving as much as 60% of Zimbabwe's mineworkers was called of on the 12th October. The strike action began on October 8, but dates back to March, when arguments arose whether initiatives by government and the reserve bank had borne fruit for the country's mining industry and should be passed on to the workers.
As with platinum, the market for copper has also been rocked by strike action at Chilean state copper company Codelco and threatened action from Lima-based Southern Peru Copper Corp. The management of Codelco is in negotiations to find a solution to the strike that began on October 8th at the company's División Norte. Miners at Southern Peru Copper's Toquepala and Cuajone mines also threaten renewed strike action earlier this month after the company threatened to fire a miner, a union worker at Toquepala.
Closer to home, Striking steelworkers at the Iron Ore Company of Canada, the country's largest iron ore producer, ended their 12 week strike late last month after the company backed off from its demand for concessions.
"Opportunities for Collaboration on Mining and Geoscience Education"
EduMine offers opportunities for collaborative development, usage and support of educational resources, starting with Education Institution Listings, maintained in the interests of promoting better communication, networking and collaboration in educational development.
The Affiliate Program delivers a low-cost alternative and/or reinforcement to in-house development of courses for specialized topics. It provides online courses in a format that allows them to be readily integrated into a mining curriculum and utilized in either a teaching or learning mode.
The Partner Program creates a platform for collaborative development of innovative continuing education and learning programs for the mining industry. For more information click on this link.
Risk Assessment and Crisis Management for Mining Professionals
This new course by Dr. Franco Oboni provides an introduction to the principles of quantitative risk assessment in a mining context.
The course is designed for mining professionals and managers who require a working knowledge of risk recognition and risk assessment and its integration into business strategy, tactical planning, resource allocation, project management and crisis management. To find out more please click on this link.
Deep Thinkers
Three friends went to apply for a job with a mining company.
The first one was called in, and the interviewer asked him if he had any experience in mining. He didn't, but he really wanted the job, so he lied and said he had definitely worked in mines before.
"And how deep of a mine have you worked in?" asked the interviewer.
"Oh about 100 feet" he answered.
"I'm sorry, but your experience isn't in deep enough mines for our company" replied the interviewer.
As he went out to the waiting room to send in his friend in, he said,"Whatever you do, tell him you worked deeper than 100 feet."
So when the second prospect got to the question about how deep his mining experience was, he answered 1000 feet. However, this was still not the kind of experience the company was looking for, and he was sent out to get the last fellow.
"You'll have to tell them you worked deeper than 1000 feet" he warned his friend.
When the interviewer came to the question of the man's experience in mines, the third prospect was ready with his answer. "I've been in a mine that was 100 miles deep," he said.
This took the interviewer aback. "I didn't even know there were mines that deep"he said, interested.
"Tell me, what kind of lighting did they use in a mine like that?"
"Well I wouldn't know," said the final prospect without blinking. "I never worked the night shift."
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This article is copyrighted by the author and all rights reside with the author, David E. Black
Back in the 1950s the scientists from General Electric were not the only ones trying to make diamonds. Unknown to them, in a magnificent old hunting palace on the outskirts of Stockholm, the Swedish electrical company ASEA had already been funding an eccentric independent scientist called Baltzar von Platen to look into making diamonds.
 In 1949 they hired a team of five scientists and engineers, headed by Erik Lunblad. The top secret project was called Quintus and Von Platen's lab became known as the Quintuslaboratorium. Von Platen was an extraordinary man who had invented the fridge. That is why ASEA took him seriously. His dream was nothing less than to invent a machine that could make Koh-i-Noor diamonds.
Like General Electric, Von Platen's team knew that high pressure and high temperature was needed to break graphite's atomic bonds. And like General Electric they had a difficult time making a machine strong enough to create those conditions. Their diamond press had a completely different design.
It had six pyramid-shaped anvils, which when pressed together formed a sphere around a sample of graphite. The whole structure was encased in a strong copper jacket and suspended in an alchohol-filled tank at 6000 atmospheres of pressure. But it was highly dangerous. If a leak appeared, it would create a high-velocity alcohol jet capable of drilling right through a hand. The whole device was capable of producing over 50,000 atmospheres and the graphite sample was surrounded by thermite which, although it could raise the temperature by 2000°C, was unstable and, combined with the alcohol, potentially explosive. Von Platen made sure that the most valuable members of the team left the room when the press was operating.
 The problem for the Swedish team was that their machine was so complicated that every time they put the apparatus under pressure and something broke, it took a whole day to unravel and rebuild it. Eventually they too realised that by adding iron carbide to the graphite sample it lowered graphite's melting point and that as more and more graphite was dissolved in the metal, it became saturated. They were sure that they had cracked the theory of making diamonds.
On February 16th 1953, nearly a year before General Electric, Erik Lundblad ran the high pressure press at 83,000 atmospheres and about 2000°C for a full hour. On unwrapping the carbon parcel, he was astonished - he found diamond crystals, no bigger than grains of sand. Unfortunately for Von Platen, ASEA decided to keep the experiment a secret in case a competitor stole their secret, and the experiment was not duplicated or published - a condition of recognition for scientific inventions - until after General Electric's announcement. As a result the world has never officially recognised that it was Von Platen's team who in fact had made the first synthetic diamond.
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Meet Simon Houlding!
