Mining Equipment Rentals

Types of Mining Methods

Placer Mining

Pick up Mining; raw materials are picked up off the surface where they have been deposited onto sand or gravel. Types of Placer Mining include panning, dredging, sluicing, picking up, or using a rocker to separate. Placer mining does not involve driving, extensive digging, or dynamite. The word comes from the Spanish word meaning Sand Bank.

Hydraulic Mining

A very destructive method of mining, now outlawed in most areas because of the long term scarring to the land that results. Hydraulic mining requires the use of high pressure water sprayed directly onto the soil for the purpose of breaking apart the rock gravel ore and deposits. The resulting sludge mixture is  milled and the  materials separated.

Hardrock Mining

As the name implies material are located in hard rock and must be excavated and pounded, cut or blasted from the rock by using picks, shovels, drills, dynamite and other tools. Shafts are dug down into the ground to access deeper material. Shafts are placed an tunnels dug following ore bodies and veins. Tunnels may be dug horizontally or vertically and must be well supported with timbers or meta support systems. Ventilation, cave ins and flooding from water are constant dangers of hardrock mining.

Open Pit Mining

Heavy equipment and machinery are used to move earth and open a large hole or pit in the ground in a concentrically widening area. Earth is removed and sorted methodically to remove materials. This method is most commonly used to mine copper and molybdenum.  The pits cover a large area and are very destructive to the landscape and visually unappealing.

Room and Pillar Mining

Used for mining coal, the coal is removed room by room with pilars of coal left in between the rooms to offer roof support. 40-70% of the coal material is removed, leaving the remainder.  There are different types of Room and Pillar Mining:

- Room and Pillar General
- Room an  Pillar Basic
- Room and Pillar Panel
- Modified Room and Pillar
- Blind Room and Pillar
- Checkerboard Room and Pillar

Surface Mining

Surface mining is used when materials are located near or on top of the surface. Sand, cinder, and gravel are mined using this method.

Underground Mining

Underground Mining is used where minerals occur deep below the surface and the overburden is thick or the mineral occurs as veins in hard rock. There are two types of Underground Coal Mines: Extraction Method and Access Method. Extraction includes Room and Pillar methods and also Longwall methods. Access Method includes slope mines, shaft mines, and drift mines.

High Extraction Mining

High Extraction Mining refers to both high-extraction retreat (HER) and longwall (LW). Also used in Coal Mining much of the coal is removed from the site leaving the surface subsidence  low and the are may continue to subside for year following the mining operations. In longwall mining, a powerful cutting machine moves back and forth along a wide face of exposed coal.

Mountain Top Removal

A new form used in coal mining, mountain top removal involves the leveling of a mountain top with mass restructuring of earth in order to reach the coal seam as deep as 1,000 feet below the surface. It is used where a coal seam outcrops all the way around a mountain top. The methods is highly controversial.

Dredging

A method used when the desired mineral are below water - the method is efficient and cheap. A dredge platform or boat is moved along the water surface and dredges for rock below. Dredging may also be used to widen or deepen a water passage.