MINING
What to Mine
• Metallic Minerals
▫ Metals
 Iron, gold, silver, nickel, zinc
• Fossil Fuels
▫ Energy resources
 Coal, natural gas, oil
• Industrial Minerals
▫ Soapstone, asbestos, diamonds, gravel
Where to Mine
• Primarily Canadian Shield
▫ Remote Areas
▫ Metallic Minerals are found in metamorphic and
igneous Rock
 Ore Bodies – Rock containing enough metallic minerals
to make mining profitable
 Magnetic field can be detected where mineral
quantities are high
How Does Mining Happen
• The miner’s job is to break ore and rock from the
ground and get it from the mine to the surface
for processing.
• There are two types of mining we will consider in
more detail:
▫ Open-pit mining & Underground mining
Open-Pit Mining
• Open-pit mining - is used to extract minerals
that are located near the surface.
▫ It is the least expensive kind of mine, and is every
developer’s first choice, where…
 an ore-body is situated close to the surface
 is big enough
 has little overburden
• Overburden - is the rock, soil, and ecosystem
that lies above the rock that contains the mineral
desired for mining.
Underground Mining
• Underground mining – is used to extract mineral
ores located deep in the earth.
1) Blasting
▫
▫
Holes are drilled into the rock (stope) and ore
Holes are loaded with explosives which are detonated
to break the rock.

Large blasts are usually set off electrically from the
surface once all the underground workers are out of
the mine, usually at the end of the work shift.
2) Mucking (loading and hauling)
▫ Once the ore has been broken it is called muck
▫ Front-end loaders or rail cars remove the muck to a
central underground location where it is dropped to
the crusher.
Cost Of Mining
• Finding a Profitable Mineral Resource
• Thinking Question:
▫ You’re thinking of joining a sports team. You happen
to go to a game and an unexpected team is winning.
You assess their skill level, and it seems pretty good.
You start to think that you might like to join this team
because you like to play competitively and win. Do
you...
 A) go to the coach and try to get on the team?
 B) talk to a few guys on the team to get a feel for them?
 C) talk to a few guys on the team and some other people
who know the team in terms of their success?
 Explain your answer.
Cost of Mining
• Relate to Mining
▫ Your walking around a park one day and your
collecting rocks. You see a few of them seem to
have gold in them. Do you...
▫ A) start digging?
▫ B) look around a little more and bring in an
expert?
▫ C) talk to some of the locals and see if there is any
evidence of mineral wealth?
• Cost of mining is very expensive
▫ Mineral wealth must be confirmed in order to
make an effective profit
Cost of Mining: Lets Break it Down
• What are some costs that could be involved in
the profitable industry of mining?
▫ Think...
 People
 Geologist
 Miners




Technology
Equipment
Processing
Environmental Disturbance
 Reclamation
Reclamation
• Reclamation - is the process of protecting,
restoring, and possibly even improving
the land, especially after surface mining.
▫ The goal is land preservation so that nature is
protected, water and soil are conserved, and the
land can be turned into productive farmland,
forests, and lakes.
Let’s Practice Mining
• Cookie Mining
• PURPOSE:
▫ The purpose of this game is to give the player an
introduction to the economics of mining.
▫ This is accomplished through the player buying
their property, purchasing the mining equipment,
paying for the mining operation, and finally
paying for the reclamation.
▫ In return the player receives money for the ore
mined.
▫ The objective of the game is to make as much
money as possible.
• INSTRUCTIONS:
• 1. Each player starts with $19 of play money.
• 2. Each player receives a Cookie Mining sheet
and a sheet of grid paper.
• 3. Each player must buy his/her own mining
property, which is a cookie. Only one mining
property, per player. Cookies for sale are:
• Great Value - $3.00
• Chips Ahoy - $6.00
• 4. After the cookie is bought, the player places
the cookie on the grid paper and, using a pencil,
traces the outline of the cookie. The player must
then count each square that falls inside the
circle. Note: Count partial squares as a full
square.
• 5. Each player must buy his/her own .mining
equipment. More than one piece of equipment
may be purchased. Equipment may not be
shared between players. Mining equipment for
sale is:
• Toothpick - $4.00 each
• Paper clips - $6.00 each
• 6. Mining costs are: $1.00 per minute.
• 7. Sale of a chocolate chip mined from a cookie
brings $2.00 (broken chocolate chips can be
combined to make 1 whole chip).
• 8. After the cookie has been mined, each player
must reclaim their cookie mine by placing the
remaining cookie parts back into the original
circle drawn on the graph paper. Any squares
within the original circle that are no longer
covered are assessed a $1.00 fee each. This can
only be accomplished using the mining tools No fingers or hands allowed.
• RULES:
• 1. No player can use their fingers to hold the
cookie. The only thing that can touch the cookie
are the mining tools and the paper on which the
cookie is sitting.
• 2. Players are allowed a maximum of six minutes
to mine their chocolate chip cookie. Players that
finish mining before the six minutes are used up
should only credit the time spent mining.
• 3. A player can purchase as many mining tools as
the player desires and the tools can be of different
types.
• 4. If the mining tools break, they are not longer
usable and a new tool must be purchased.
• 5. The players that make money by the end of the
game win.