ozzie hard rock photos

[centennial]

Some photos of my mine in Australia you may like
Cheers

 

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[Hoser John]

Fantastic looking operation. Lean and mean and right to the point. Are you using mechanical or chemical gold extraction methods?? I have much family history in OZ and REALLY want to go,missed out on a free month long trip due to single parenting. Nice to see you running such a clean operation . Tons a au 2 u 2-John

 

[Cynangyl]

Welcome to Tnet and thanks for sharing the photos, it looks like quite an operation!

 

[djui5]

Wow!!! Cool operation. What is in the vein?

 

[Kid Saxon]

Good photos
You have a big drift, pocket or free milling.
What kind of mill do you use? Chuck

 

[centennial]

Still in exploration stage now but I am setting up a small jaw crusher and ball mill to do some larger samples.
The tunnel we are driving is a extension of a 500 metre long tunnel driven in the 1870's to access a rich ore shoot at a deep level after flooding in the upper levels stopped work. The old timers never hit the rich ore shoot again and went broke. We have done alot of surveying and think we need to tunnel another 20 metres or so along the reef to get into the main ore shoot. We are going up this weekend to fire a shot at the face and we should be 2 metres closer. I'll post some more photos next week.

 

[ClonedSIM]

LOL!! I opened up this post expecting to see some Black Sabbath pics!

 

[centennial]

Done a blast on the weekend and advanced the face by 1.8 mtr, now Ive got about 30 ton of rock to load and tram out. Crushed a buket of vein material for a sample but alas no gold. These narrow reefs can be very patchy, in some places in the old workings they were getting crushings of 100 oz to the ton, Id like some of that. Here a few more photos of our entertainment area ,sampling jaw crusher and ball mill and portal ,

 

[truckinbutch]

Awesome! Got 25yrs underground in deep coal from handload/pony haulage to 50 ton electric locomotive hauling 35 10 ton car trips 12 miles to the outside.
Wish I could be there for the fun of it.Shooting was a specialty of mine.
Question:Last 2 pics look like you are blowing air to the face rather than exhaust ventilating.Is that accurate or just vapor haze at the pitmouth?

 

[centennial]

Yeah were blowing air to the face which is 500mts inbye. The haze at the portal is the last of the fumes after a blast.

 

[truckinbutch]

Curiosity on my part,no armchair quarterbacking:How come you are blowing blast residue and dust down your main entry instead of using negative ventilation?
Coal seams I worked we needed all the intake air we could get to dissipate methane and carry float dust away from workers.I still ended up rocked up to 45% of lung capacity.
Your adventure is one I would still sign on for.Nobody lives for ever.

 

[centennial]

You can blow air to the face using layflat plastic tube hung from the roof,to draw air from the face would require solid duct such as fibreglass or metal which is considerably more expensive. The old timers had considerable ventilation problems in 1882 , they tried to excavate a ventilation shaft to the surface about 200 meters along the tunnel from the portal, this shaft would have needed to be about 180 feet straight up, they made it about 100 feet.

 

[truckinbutch]

All makes sense to me.Damn! Can you imagine the labor involved in running a 100+ verticle stope back then? Staging and single jacking I would suppose.

 

[centennial]

Ill take a photo of the vent shaft on the weekend and post it. After knowing how much work it takes to drive these tunnels Im amazed at how they done it at all, they were a incredibly tough bunch.

 

[Hoser John]

YYYYYEEEEEEESSSSSSSS-party on gentlemen!!Tons a au 2 u 2-John

 

[flyspekau]

WHOA good to see someone actually still mining I bet and I would bet you hit a nice pocket and pay for all the equipment plus some, best of luck 2 U

 

[centennial]

Heres some more photos of an old mine near our you might like. The reef pictured assays around 10gm/ton. It was last worked in 1910.

 

[truckinbutch]

Please keep on posting.

 

[centennial]

Heres a 3D Autocad model of the mine . The red areas are low grade reef, the yellow is high grade ore.

 

[centennial]

Dumping rock from 18 cbic foot mine car, about 30 of these per blast to advance tunnel about 1.8 metres.