Elizabeth,
This is getting very funny. Put that dictionary down- it is dangerous.
First and foremost, "exfoliation" is a form of mechanical weathering common in granites. The weathering part of the definition means this phenomenon occurs ONLY on surface. Exfoliation and spalling have nothing to do with mining unless you are exploring for building stone.
Second, if there is so much of a problem with "pressure", how can any underground mine remain in operation? How do those mine workings stay open? How does the ore, extracted from miles below in most flat-lying South African gold deposits, keep from exploding when brought to surface? Do these South African mines have "changing grades" between the orebody, several miles below and the mill?
Elizabeth, in your funny way of explaining things, you do have a very good point though. The fact that the TG-3 is flat-lying is significant because TG-3 will have to be extracted underground. That means that the stopes in an underground operation will have to be mined by room and pillar. There could be some dilution because they may have to leave pillars, BUT, in the modern world of mining, we do something called back-filling. Back-filling means that the processed material will be brought back down to fill in the mined sections of the stopes. With this method, most of the pilars can be recovered, hence the dilution becomes negligable. Back-filling will increase the mining cost, but most underground mines are using back-fill. The cost will be factored into the feasibility. MAN is far from attempting a feasibility study on TG-3. |
