Adit
A type of entrance to an underground mine which is horizontal or nearly horizontal. Adits are usually built into the side of a hill or mountain, and often occur when a measure of coal or an ore body is located inside the mountain but above the adjacent valley floor or coastal plain. In cases where the mineral vein outcrops at the surface, the adit may follow the vein until it is worked out. The use of adits is generally called drift mining.
Black Damp
Also known as stythe or choke damp, is a mixture of unbreathable gases formed when oxygen is removed from an enclosed atmosphere and largely replaced by nitrogen, argon, carbon dioxide and water vapour. The gas displaces oxygen in the air, lowering the available oxygen content to a level which is incapable of sustaining human or animal life; it is thus an asphyxiate.
Claim
Staking a claim involves marking the claim boundaries, typically with wooden posts or stone cairns. A mining claim is the claim of the right to extract minerals from a tract of public land. A mining claim always starts out as an unpatented claim. The owner of an unpatented must continue mining or exploration activities on that tract of land, or it becomes null. Activities on unpatented claims are restricted to those necessary to mining. A patented claim is one for which the federal government has issued a patent (deed). To obtain a patent, the owner of a mining claim must prove to the federal government that the claim contains locatable minerals that can be extracted at a profit. A patented claim can be used for any purpose desired by the owner, just like any other real estate.
Copper
A chemical element with the symbol Cu (Latin: cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is rather soft and malleable, and a freshly exposed surface has a pinkish or peachy color. It is used as a thermal conductor, an electrical conductor, a building material, and a constituent of various metal alloys.
Open-pit mining
Also known as open-cast mining and open-cut mining, refers to a method of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow. The term is used to differentiate this form of mining from extractive methods that require tunnelling into the earth. Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially useful minerals or rock are found near the surface; that is, where the overburden (surface material covering the valuable deposit) is relatively thin or the material of interest is structurally unsuitable for tunnelling (as would be the case for sand, cinder, and gravel). For minerals that occur deep below the surface—where the overburden is thick or the mineral occurs as veins in hard rock— underground mining methods extract the valued material.
Ore
A type of rock that contains minerals with important elements including metals. The ores are extracted through mining; these are then refined to extract the valuable element(s).
Prospecting
Prospecting is the physical search for minerals, fossils, precious metals or mineral specimens, and is also known as fossicking. Prospecting is a small-scale form of mineral exploration which is an organised, large scale effort undertaken by mineral resource companies to find commercially viable ore deposits.
Prospector
Someone involved in prospecting.
Shaft
Shaft mining or Shaft sinking refers to the method of excavating a vertical or near-vertical tunnel from the top down, where there is initially no access to the bottom. When the top of the excavation is the ground surface, it is referred to as a shaft or portal, when the top of the excavation is underground, it is called a winze.
Skarn
In geology, a metamorphic zone developed in the contact area around igneous rock intrusions when carbonate sedimentary rocks are invaded by and replaced with chemical elements that originate from the igneous rock mass nearby. Many skarns also include ore minerals; productive deposits of copper or other base metals have been found in and adjacent to skarns. The typical rock of a skarn is hornfels, a fine-grained, flinty rock produced by the heat and solutions given off by the intruding magma.
Smelting
A form of extractive metallurgy; its main use is to produce a metal from its ore. This includes iron extraction (for the production of steel) from iron ore, and copper extraction and other base metals from their ores. Smelting uses heat and a chemical reducing agent to change the oxidation state of the metal ore; the reducing agent is commonly a source of carbon such as coke, or in earlier times charcoal. The carbon or carbon monoxide derived from it removes oxygen from the ore to leave the metal. The carbon is thus oxidized in two stages, producing first carbon monoxide and then carbon dioxide. As most ores are impure, it is often necessary to use flux, such as limestone, to remove the accompanying rock gangue as slag.
Spur Line
A branch line is a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line.
Exhibit
Find out how a museum exhibit is made with this fun tour http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/nof/maths/
