L2.1: Mining Method

• MINING METHODS

  Underground Mining

  Surface Mining

  • Open-pit Mining
  • Strip Mining
  • Dredging
• Underground Mining

  ○ When the overburden or the rock/soil overlying the mineral deposit is thick. It is done by digging deep into the earth’s interior to obtain the ore from within. Considered dangerous because it creates tunnels beneath the Earth’s surface and may trap miners.
• Open-pit Mining

  ○ Conical holes that are dug out of the previously loosened rock by blasting. These are often converted into landfills when no longer profitable.
• Strip Mining

  ○ Removing the surface of the material being dug up, usually when the ores are near the surface.

  ○ Impracticable and unnecessarily harmful to the terrain if the mineral is too deeply buried.

  ○ With the use of machinery.
• Dredging

  ○ Extraction of precious resources like gold from silt underground or underwater. Sediments are removed from the bottom of a body of water (through suction or buckets) but are usually put back after extraction.

  ○ Type of surface mining in which chain buckets and draglines scrape up sand, gravel, and other surface deposits covered with water. It is also used to remove sediment from streams and harbors to maintain shipping channels.