Some Challenges of Deep Mining

An increased global supply of minerals is essential to meet the needs and expectations of a rapidly rising world population. This implies extraction from greater depths. Autonomous mining systems, developed through sustained R＆D by equipment suppliers, reduce miner exposure to hostile work environments and increase safety. This places increased focus on ＂ground control＂ and on rock mechanics to define the depth to which minerals may be extracted economically. Although significant efforts have been made since the end of World War II to apply mechanics to mine design, there have been both technological and organizational obstacles. Rock in situ is a more complex engineering material than is typically encountered in most other engineering disciplines. Mining engineering has relied heavily on empirical procedures in design for thousands of years. These are no longer adequate to address the challenges of the 21st century, as mines venture to increasingly greater depths. The development of the synthetic rock mass （SRM） in 2008 provides researchers with the ability to analyze the deformational behavior of rock masses that are anisotropic and discontinuous-attributes that were described as the defining characteristics of in situ rock by Leopold Mfiller, the president and founder of the International Society for Rock Mechanics （ISRM）, in 1966. Recent developments in the numerical modeling of large-scale mining operations （e.g., caving） using the SRM reveal unanticipated deformational behavior of the rock. The application of massive parallelization and cloud computational techniques offers major opportunities： for example, to assess uncertainties in numerical predictions： to establish the mechanics basis for the empirical rules now used in rock engineering and their validity for the prediction of rock mass behavior beyond current experience： and to use the discrete element method （DEM） in the optimization of deep mine design. For the first time, mining-and rock engineering-will have its own mechanics-based Ulaboratory.＂ This promises to be a major tool in future planning for effective mining at depth. The paper concludes with a discussion of an opportunity to demonstrate the application of DEM and SRM procedures as a laboratory, by back-analysis of mining methods used over the 80-year history of the Mount Lvell Copper Mine in Tasmania.

Accumulation mechanism of mantle-derived helium resources in petroliferous basins, eastern China

A series of marginal-sea basins and fault-depression basins were formed in eastern China under the background of subduction of the West Pacific plate.Different types of helium-rich natural gas reservoirs(He>1000 ppm,1 ppm=1μmol mol^(-1))have been found in these basins:helium-rich CO_(2)gas reservoirs,helium-rich N_(2)gas reservoirs,and helium-rich hydrocarbon gas reservoirs.Based on the analysis of gas geochemical data,the source and accumulation mechanism of helium in these heliumrich natural gas reservoirs were discussed.Helium-rich natural gas has relatively high 3He/4He ratios(0.88-4.91 Ra,average 2.82 Ra).The ^(3)He/^(4)He ratio characteristics of mantle xenoliths and mantle-derived CO_(2)gas reservoirs indicate that the helium in these helium-rich natural gas reservoirs is mainly mantle-derived(>70%).The original mantle volatile is mainly CO_(2)with a low helium concentration(He<200 ppm),and the enrichment of mantle-derived helium in the gas reservoir is mainly related to the dissolution and mineralization of CO_(2).During this process,the CO_(2)/3He ratio decreases from 2×10^(9)to approximately 2×10^(6).As CO_(2)dissolves and mineralizes,the concentration of conservative gases(He and N_(2))increases in the remaining CO_(2)gas proportionally to the loss of CO_(2).Large amounts of carbonate minerals,such as dawsonite,which are relatively enriched in 13C,are found in CO_(2)reservoirs in eastern China.The relative enrichment of^(12)C in residual CO_(2)gas is important evidence of the dissolution and mineralization of CO_(2).The relative abundance of mantle-derived helium and N_(2)gas increases thousands of times during the dissolution and mineralization of CO_(2),which is the main accumulation mechanism of mantle-derived helium-rich CO_(2)gas reservoirs and helium-rich N_(2)gas reservoirs.Helium-rich gas from the mantle is mixed with alkane gas generated by organic matter in the sedimentary basin to form helium-rich hydrocarbon gas reservoirs.