Super pit gold mine
| Super pit gold mine | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| General information about the mine | |||
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| other names | Super Pit Gold Mine, Fimiston Open Pit | ||
| Mining technology | Open pit | ||
| Information about the mining company | |||
| Operating company | Barrick Gold , Newmont Mining | ||
| Employees | 550 | ||
| Start of operation | Late 1890s | ||
| Funded raw materials | |||
| Degradation of | gold | ||
| Geographical location | |||
| Coordinates | 30 ° 46 '29 " S , 121 ° 30' 34" E | ||
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| Location | Kalgoorlie Boulder | ||
| State | Western Australia | ||
| Country | Australia | ||
The Super-Pit-Goldmine (English: Super Pit Gold Mine or Fimiston Open Pit ) is an open pit gold mine in the Goldfields-Esperance region on the Goldfields Highway at the southeast end of Kalgoorlie-Boulder , the largest town in the Australian outback . The open pit stretches over 3.5 kilometers in length, 1.5 kilometers in width and over 600 meters in depth, making it Australia's largest gold mine in terms of area. The Uluṟu would have enough space in the mine . In terms of gold production, the 2018 Super Pit gold mine in Australia ranked second after the Boddington gold mine.
Since a production drop of 17% to 628,000 troy ounces in 2018, the super pit mine is no longer one of the ten largest gold mines in the world.
Operator, owner and employment
Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines Pty Ltd (KCGM) operates Super Pit , a company that is half owned by Barrick Gold and half by Newmont Mining . The mining industry produced 628,000 troy ounces (19.5 tons) of gold in 2018.
More than 550 people are employed on the mine site. The company also has training programs for Aborigines with no mining experience and for technicians and truck drivers.
history
The Kalgoorlie-Boulder area is the traditional land of the Maduwangka Aborigines .
European settlement began in 1893 when the Irish Paddy Hannan , Dan Shea and Tom Flannagan found gold near Mount Charlotte, which led to an Australian gold rush , as a result of which Kalgoorlie grew to 30,000 inhabitants in 1903. After this discovery became known, further prospectors penetrated the area and in the gold field of today's Super Pit gold was only mined in the late 1890s , which was named Golden Mile . The gold diggers quickly realized that there was more gold in the depths and so numerous small mines were created that reached into the subsurface. The businessman Alan Bond tried to merge the mines into a single mine in the 1980s, but it failed. The origins of the Super Pit are believed to be in 1989 when Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines Pty Ltd combined several mines into one plant. Barrick Gold acquired shares in Super Pit in December 2001 when it acquired the Homestake Mining Company . Newmont became another owner three months later when it took over Normandy Mining in February 2002.
geology
The mine is located in a geological formation in Western Australia, the Norseman-Wiluna Greenstone Belt .
The gold-bearing veins of the mine emerged from a series of steep shearings of the massive rock and they formed the so-called Golden Mile Dolerite . The mine's dolerite , which has the gold-bearing material in Australia, consists of more than 2000 veins that are 5 kilometers long, 2 kilometers wide and 1 kilometer deep. The ore veins vary in size; generally only veins that are 10 meters long and 6 meters wide are mined.
The rock in which the gold veins lie is a shattered tholeiitic gabbro . Depending on the mineral concentration, pyroxene and olivine , plagioclase and ilmenite and a high concentration of quartz in granophyric rocks have formed in the volcanic vents . These compounds intruded 2,675 million years ago in a vent made of hornblende , plagioclase, and quartz . The chimneys are of the same age and their content is of the same rock composition. There are also small chimneys made of lamprophyr .
There were several faults that occurred in a narrow area of a few kilometers ago 2,670 million years ago, the Golden Mine fault divided into an eastern and a western zone, the ore veins with gold, plunged steeply, The main veins run to the northwest, intersecting veins run in a north-north-west direction and the opposite veins run in a west-north-north direction.
The mineralization took place within the brecciated veins and the minerals were shaped like leaves by the foliation that took place . Furthermore, an alteration took place, the conversion of minerals in a rock to secondary minerals . The most distant zones of the fault contain chlorite - calcite . Chlorite and calcite were replaced by sericite and iron-rich carbonates a few meters from the chimney edges. The most severely altered rocks contain siderite , vanadium-rich sericite, and no chlorite. The least altered rocks include hematite and anhydrite .
Ore minerals are found on the mine site, such as pyrite , copper pyrites and a few sulphides , silver - telluride , mercury , lead and gold. The ore is generally difficult to smelt. The gold-containing deposits contain around 30% gold, 25% gold telluride, 35% gold in pyrite and 10% finely divided gold in pyrite, which cannot be seen with the eye. The gold content in the veins can reach hundreds or thousands of grams per ton. On average, however, 2.5 grams per ton of rock are achieved.
Mining operations
The rock in the mine is drilled using conventional technology, then the boreholes are filled with explosives and detonated. Every year 15 million tons of rock after the blast are moved with excavators that lift 60 tons of rock and with large-capacity dump trucks that can load 225 tons. 240,000 tons are transported every day. The ore is transported to two plants, the Fimiston and Gidji plants. Before the gold is extracted, the ore is crushed.
The mine is operated 365 days a year in a two-shift system, every 12 hours.
Loading the dump truck with a shovel excavator
Dump truck transport
A single loaded dump truck
View of a deep mining level
View inside the mine
Gold mining and the environment
Crushing, grinding and foaming of the ore and the extraction of the gold take place in the Fimiston plant and it is continued in the Gidji plant.
The gold deposits with tellurides and in pyrite in the rock are exceptional. In order to extract the gold, the rock must first be ground. It is then subjected to a flotation process in order to produce the gold-containing pyrite concentrate. This is melted in a small smelter outside of Kalgoorlie-Boulder in order to free the gold from telluride.
The separation of rock and gold is done by gravity and the carbon-in-leach process. In this process, the rock is processed after crushing the rock, flotation and cyanide leaching with the help of activated carbon .
In the process of cyanide leaching, gold is chemically bound in highly toxic seepage water. After filtration and precipitation, brown sludge is produced, which, after washing and drying, turns into raw gold through reduction . In this process, hydrogen cyanide and cyanides are produced , which can escape into the environment despite reuse of the lye. All substances produced in this process are poisonous. Although these are easily decomposed and broken down in nature, the resulting large spoil heaps and cyanide dusts can be distributed in an uncontrolled manner by wind and water, toxins can enter the environment in an uncontrolled manner and cause serious ecological damage.
Production numbers
Production figures by years:
| year | production | proportion of | Cost per ounce |
| 1998-99 | 718,554 ounces | 2.37 g / t | US $ 236 |
| 2000 | 715,164 ounces | 2.27 g / t | A $ 325 |
| 2001 | 616,344 ounces | 2.14 g / t | A $ 397 |
| 2002 | 720,050 ounces | 1.73 g / t | A $ 222 |
| 2003 | |||
| 2004 | |||
| 2005 | |||
| 2006 | |||
| 2007 | 628,000 ounces | 1.53 g / t | |
| 2008 | 612,000 ounces | 1.56 g / t | |
| 2009 | 690,000 ounces | US $ 609 | |
| 2010 |
tourism
The mine can be toured from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, and blasts can be seen from a lookout on the Goldfields Highway in Boulder.
Web links
- earthobservatory.nasa.gov : Satellite image of the Super Pit and Fimiston Rock Mill, including Kalgoorlie
Individual evidence
- ↑ Homepage of the Super Pit Gold Mine. About Us. www.superpit.com.au, accessed on November 16, 2019 (English).
- ↑ JP Casey: The six biggest gold mines in Australia. www.mining-technology.com, January 30, 2019, accessed November 16, 2019 .
- ↑ a b Frik Els: Top 10 biggest gold mines. www.mining.com, June 18, 2019, accessed November 16, 2019 .
- ↑ Jarrod Lucas: Australia's $ 19b gold industry on edge of 'production cliff' as mines run out of gold, analyst warns. www.abc.net.au, April 30, 2019, accessed November 16, 2019 (English).
- ↑ superpit.com.au ( Memento of the original from April 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : Employment , accessed April 22, 2012
- ↑ kalgoorlieaustralia.com ( Memento of the original from February 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : History , in English, accessed April 22, 2012
- ↑ kalgoorlieaustralia.com ( Memento of the original from May 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : The Super Pit , accessed April 22, 2012
- ↑ a b c d mining-technology.com.au : Fimiston Open Pit "Super Pit" Gold Mine, Australia , in English, accessed April 22, 2012
- ↑ regenwald.org : 12 questions and answers on the topic of gold , accessed on April 26, 2012
- ↑ The Australian Mines Handbook - 2003-04 Edition . P. 127.
- ↑ onof.goldavenue.com ( Memento of the original dated August 29, 2003 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : Normandy Mining Ltd - 1999. Mine-by-Mine Operating Results , accessed April 22
