Information Circular 6174: Method and Cost of Mining Zinc and Lead at No. 3 Mine, Tri-State District, Crestline, Kansas
Information Circular 6174: Method and Cost of Mining Zinc and Lead at No. 3 Mine, Tri-State District, Crestline, Kansas by United States Department of…
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Circular 6174
Department Of Commerce
Regeived
Oct 10 1929 5. U. Library
UNITED STATES BUREAU OF MINES Scotr TURNER, DIRECTOR
Information Circular
September, 1929
METHOD AND COST OF MINING ZINC AND LEAD AT NO. 3 MINE, TRI-STATE DISTRICT,
Crestline, Kansas
By
Wm, F. NETZEBAND
Circula. 6174, senvtember, 1929, TOPMAMTOM ATRAVTTAR ;
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DEPARTMENT. OF COMVMERCZ - "BUREAY j OF MINES
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METHCD AND COST OF MINING ZING AND LZAD AT JO. 3 CAINE, TRISSTATS DISERICT, CRESTLINE, "+
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By Wm. F. Netzutaid 2
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es ct the No. 3 mire, ae
b7 the. Burcau of Minas on LOS ae a CoS ot tie
This paver describing the m State district is one of a series b Minines practices, methods, and cost United States.
LO Cat iON The mine is located in an isolated como about 11/2 miles east of the town of Crestline, Ken. Its relation to the main Picher, Okla., cam is shown in the accompanying 1 man. (Tir. 1.) HISTORY
The property was acquired dy lease in Fobruurv, 1924, ater it had been drilled, a shaft gunz, ard a mill built. 'The mine 1s sitarated in waat was then practically virgin territory, anu considerable water wes encountered.
eter on drilling proved wu several isolate d ore bocias and "field" snafts were sun on then. Tro "ricld" shafts vere ecmpletcd in 1925 and one in
The nill has a conacity cf 400 tons in 10 hours and is ecuipoed with a flotation unit.
Ssology
Ce
The stratigrrony of this arcn is much. the same as in the main Picher, Oxla., com; but the formations are all challovwer. San eee ee
1 - The Buresu of Mines will welcome reprinting of this never ovovided tre 'following footnote acknorledement is used: "Reprinted from tT. §. of Mines Circular 6174 ."
2- One of the consulting engineers, U. S. Bureau of Mines.
Ne
Inf. Cir. No. 6174,
The normal Cherokee snale ranges from GQ to 4C feet in thickness with occasional pockets where it attains a thickness of 90 to 100 feet. Tre Short Cree" oolite is found at 140 fect and tne Grand Falls chert at 240 feet. The Grand Falls chert is about 20 feet thicl= ard min: alized, 'but the ore is not rich enough to be of: commercial grade at vresent.
Ore Deposits
The ore deposits are closely associated witn the shale vnockets and are somevnat similar to thse ore deposits of the old Joplin, Mo., camp. Tce ore body at the mill shaft apparently entirely surrounds the shale vociczet with which it is associated. This relationship is shown in the plan, Figure 2, and in the section, Figure 3. - The other ore bodies lie along only one side of shale pockets. . : ; ,
The ore occurs in bowlder ground for about 50 feet below the Short Creek oolite horizon, that is, at 9 death of 140 to 190 fect. Tiere re isolated pockets of lead ore above the oolite horizon, but they heve not been large enough to mine.
Tie.ore igs sohnalerite and fralpna associated with jaspe sroid, blue, gray, and white flint, gray dolomite, pink crystalline dolomite, and calcite. The ore occurs disseminated in the jasperiod and flint or cementing bowlders of the same material. The crystalline dolomite and calcite also ocauir, cementing the bowlde-s of jasnerdid and flint.
The ore bog tes are narrow but thick, and ther; ave controlled ov the shale pockets with which they are associated. Very few pillars are necessary, because the character of the ground vill not allow drifts over 20 feet wide, and in most cases this is the width of nineable ore.
le AND ASTIMATION OF CRE RESERVES
After oe eavacrex of fie ore bodics was determined by the early drilling it was found that this property was adastabla to what is locally known es "snale drilling", Bv this method of drilling the contact between the Cherokee shale and the Boone formation is determined by a series of holes which srs drilled througn the shale but only about 10 fect into the underl:- ing Boone formation. The holes are drilled at regular intervals, usually on 200 or 400 foot centers. From the data obtained, the base of the seals is contoured and deep drilling concentrated around the edges of tne deen shale pockets. By this method considerable territory can oe eliminated as unfavorable at small cost.
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Missouri
Kansas
Springfield Columbus #@ Crestline #@ Carthage
Galena4 ™@ Joplin
@Miami @ Neosho
OKLAHOMA ncaa siecadeureantnusgusasusuaaciienensenes
Arkansas
Figure 1.— Map of district showing relation of Crestline, Kan. to the main Picher, Okla, camp
Seale in fost
© Chars drill hole
Figure 2— Plan of No. 3 mine
See
. Inf. Cir. Noe. 6174.
The shale holes arc drilled for 49 to 60 cents vor foot, defending upon the length of move and the tonogrmryotf the tract being drilled. Deep holes are.drilled for $1.10 to $1.50 per font. Much of the drilijing on this pronerty cost $1.50 ver font because of the borlderv character of the ground. . It is @ifficult eround to drill, as is witnessed by the nunber of strings of tools which vere lost and nover recovered. Wherever a hole could be finished with the 6z-inch ¢ string of tools the price was $i, 10 per foot.
There has been 37,246 feet of drilling on this property. EARLY MINING MsaTHODS
The methods - of mining neve not changed at this mine; the ore is still loaded by hand into cans; the cans are trained by hand to the shaft and then hoisted to the cre dGuimed into the hopper without being de- t2cned from the ropes, and returned imneciaso.s to tre shart bottom.
The mining method, the oren-stope system with pillar support, has remained the same, but the character of the ground requires the use of fewer pillars than at most mines of tha district.
DEVELOPMENT sisT™
The first shaft was sunk by the er) company to a depth of 150 feet. To permit sinking the shaft to reach this depth a 27-inch churn-drill hole was out down near the shaft' and a 10-inch vertical centrifugal pump (Texcs pump) instdled to lower the water.: Tnis shaft was made the mill shaft.
Main Sraft. - The mill shaft was sunk by the original cémpeny to a deoth of 160 feet but was later deepened to 205 feot by the vresent company. Consideraodle water was encountered, as this.mine'was in practically virgin territory; tnis hindered the sinkinzs of the shart to the bottom of the ove.
Part of the ore boey was-mined at 160 feet and.then stoped successively to 190 and 205 feet as the water vas lowered ond the shaft deepened.
Aaviliary Shafts. - Three "field shafts" have' been sunk on isolated ore bodies and thes: were connected with the mill by surfece trams... Tie shafts vere sunk on contract with the contractor furnishing the Eero and the company all supplies anc equipment. one oes
6355.
Inf. Cir. No. 6174,
One of the shafts was finished on comoany tine because of pockets of gas in the open, bowldery ground which gave considerable trouble. This gas vas principally carbon dioxide, and some difficulty was experienced in removing it with the small suction fans available.
No costs are available for either of tnese shafts.
"Pull" Drifts. - Prospect or "null" drifts are driven 7 by 7 feet . in cross section. All such drifts have been driven on company time, ard no costs are available. Unless a drift must be finished vromtly it is usually grilled whenever a machine is available from the regular mining overations.
A lg-hole round using the 4-hole diamond cut, vith two side holes, three roof holes, and three "stope" or bottom holes, is used. The holes. are drilled approximately 7 feet ceev, and 6 feet is broken ner round. The cut holes are loaded with 8 to 10 sticks of 30 pér cent gelatin powder and the other holes with about 7 sticks of the same strength powder. The scotch Figure 4 shows the arrangement of the holes.
Raises. - It has not been necessary to drive any raises at this time. PRESENT MINING METEOD
Tne plan and section of Mine No. 3 are shown in Figures 2 and 3. The method used at this mine is different from that generally used throughout the district. No heading is driven ahad of the main stope and much of the time no drilling is necesSary; a crevice or opening between bowlders is often conveniently placed and can be loaded instead of drilling a hole.
The ground is of such loose character that it is only necessary to blast the bottom to' maintain the floor 'grade, and the rest can be trimmed down with roof bars.
The ore breaks into large bowlders, making it necessary to do a considerable amouatof "bowlder popping" before loading into cans. As a matter of fect, more drilling is done to break the bovlcers than is necessary in breaking the rock at the face. All bowlders ere drilled with ja ockhammers before blasting. ) em og "
All blasting is done vith 20 per cent gelatin powder. 'This order costs $0.1225 per pound.
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Inf. Cir. No. 6174.
Underground Syw2,0rt..- The ore bodies are so narrow for the most part that no pillars are necessary, but some, of the ground, becomes so loose that timbers are required. Cavs and costs of round timbers ere set on 6-. foot centers and lagged above and if necessary on the sides: The floor is hard so no mud sills are required...
Tie around— is so "Tease and bowlaery that extrene care must be taken to keep the roof well trimmed. As mentioned earlier, only the lower stove is blasted, and the rest of the ore is brcexen down with roof bars. Because extreme care is imperative this mine has ha? an excellent record for no tine lost from accidents, esvecially from falling rock.
Drilling And Blasting Practice
Comoressors. - Air is. fur oehaa by a Hele aeiven.' Be state com~ pressor with a capacity of 1,200 cubic feet ~or minute. At voresent air is being used for the drill sharper, 13 mackivss in the mine and t70 2-inch vums. ae .
Drills. — Several iaeee of arilis are used but: they are all of the heavy Leyner tyoe. except that jackham miners are used for block-holing. Hach, is operated by two men. The drills are mounted on posts for "pull" drift work and on trivods for drilling the stoves. .All Leyner drills. use 13~- inch hollow round steel and the jaclhamners use l-inch hexagon hollo7v steel.
The standard cross bit. vith an 18-degree taper is used. The gauges are EE Op Ded, one-fourth inch for steel changes of 2 feet. The starter bits are inches in diameter and the holes are finished 14 inches in diameter. The gauge of the jackhamner steels. is/2 3/8 inches. ..
Tne blacksmith shop is located a the surface near the mill shaft and is equipped with a pover sharper and necessary equipment for ordinary repair work around the mine and. mills
Blasting. - The blasting practice at Mine . No: 3 is unique in that no heading round is necessary and very often no drilling is required to break the ore at tne face. The arrangement of the holes for the stove round is shown in. Figure 5.
Three holes are required to break the stove, and in a drift 20 feet wide, which is the averace for the mine, the holes are drilled 14 feet deed. A hole is drilled in each corner of the drift looking slightly out and dovn. Tne hole is drilled downward with a pitch of 1 inch to the foot,
6355. os el
Inf. Cir. No: 6174.
and the collar is so placed that the bottom of the hole will be below the grade of the drift. third hole is placed in the center of the drift and is drilled downward with the same pitch as the corner holes.
Very often a crevice is conveniently placed, and a hole can be ""studded in" with a bar made of l-inch hexagon steel sharpened at one end. When holes are "studded in" the death is peoteee to about 10 feet.
No splitter holes are drilled in this mine, only the three stope holes.
The holes are squibbed twice before the final charge is loaded. The first time the hole is squibbed vith two to six sticks of powder and 24 hours later they are squibbed with five sticks of powder. The center hole is shot with 20 sticks to 3 boxes of powder, depending on the size of the chamber and the load to te broken. The corner holes are shot with about one-half this amount of powder.
The powder is all 20 per cent gelatin dynamite. The primers are made by inserting a No. 6 cap in the center of the stick of powder and placing this in a safety tube. The type of tube used is shown in Figure 6. This tuoe protects the fuse from abrasion by sharp projections in the hole, which is very ragged in this tyze of ground.
The blasting breaks between 10 and 20 feet of ore depending upon the deoth of hole and character of the ground; the rest is trimmed down with roof bars. The roof trimmer works first from the pile of broken ore and trims down as much as he can conveniently reach without exposing himself to falling rock. When the roof trimmer has trimmed all that he can reach from the broken ore he uses ladders for the remainder of the ore. The ladders come in 20-foot sections and it is very often necessary to use three sections for the drifts are cut from 40 to 60 feet in height. The drifts are all so narrow that the roof trimmer can work on ladders placed against the walls of the drift, so that he is fairly "ell protected from bowlders rolling dom the stope or unexpectedly large masses of broken rock coming down from the roof.
Tne Ore is broken dowm as large bowlders and must be blasted tefore loading into cans. All bowlders are drilled with jackhammers before shooting.
The averase tonnage per machine shift is 60 to 65 tons.
[7 Cir. xo. 5174. LOADING AXD TRAMING
All loading is by hana shoveling into cans set on low trucks. Tre cans are J2 inches in diancter by 32 inches Geen, and have a capacity of O.6 tons of ore. Tn2 track gauge is 17 inches.
0 mules ars uscd. unter ground; the hauls ave all so short tnot all training is Gone oy hand. Seven men are emoloved as trainers et three of the shafts, and at the fourth shaft each shoveler is siven a "bruno hand! "no teens the ore mucked Gon onte the boards and nelys the shovelor traa the loaded can to the shaft where he hooics his ovn cans. No "tuo noozers"! or "burners" are emoloyed at this snaft because sel) tonnage "hich comes fron it. The "bruno hand" is vaid shift vac
The ore at the "field" shafts is dram fron the hovers into vood- Gn cars and trained to tho mill a gasoline loconctive. Tic cars aro tacn pulled wo an incline by a gaaread electric hoist and dumped into the mill hovvor. One locomotive handles the ore from the tursce "fiold" shafts.
Pumping
The burden of keeping the district unvatered has been taken by one of the other mines, and all mines in the district shore the expense.
To take cars of the surface ~ater tv70 2-inch scan vums operated by compressed air and a triplex pump driven br a S-horsevover motor are in use. Ticse jumps hove a combined capacity of about 59 gallons vir minute. Ordinerily they are run for eae short tima exch morning, Due Gurie the wet season it is often necessary to run them 10 hours" cach day.
Record of labor vorformed 2t Mine No. 3 for 1227
Total shifts Tors dor snift Travers 2,312 / 57.25 Drill runners and helpers 4,624 20 Oc wickers 4,335 30.53 wisccllaneous labor 2.601 50. 82 Totsl underground overations 13,872 9.54
Ore hoisted during 1927 anointed to 132,384 tons.
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Inf, Cir. No. 6174. PERCENTAGE OF EXTRACTION
Tao vorcentege of extraction 'Till vary considerably at the several shafts of the vroverty. At the mill shift beat 6 per cent of the area mined is left in villars, whereas in the "Tield" shafts this figure varies fron zero to 22 ver cont. It is doubtful if many of the pillars can be or are rics. enough to be recovered so tint the extraction at the several si its mill range from 78 to 100 per cent.
Wages And Contract Syste
All labor except mucking is based on an G-hour dav. 'Wuackevs are vaid on contract, 10.5 cents per can of 0.6 tons. Muckers at dné shaft are allowed a "bruno helper" who keeps the ore mucizsd onto the boards and helps tram the can to the.shaft. The "bruno helper" is paid snift waves.
An experienced maker vill load 40 or more cans in an 8-hour snift. Many will average 80 or more cans ver shift if they are viven a good vor'ting place wnere the ore "ill run dom onto-the boards.
Tne followings vago scale vas in effect during 1°28 when zine ore prices starved at $40.00 oz under for prime western ore.
Machine men § 4.25 : Machine helpers oeldD Blacksmith , 0200
screen men ' 5s
Bruno helpers 5300
Trammne os 35.50
Mucker boss . 4.50
Ground foremen 00.00 ver week Roof trimmer : 4.25
Track men 4.25 Loconotive runner 5.00 Erakenan 3.50 Hoistman 4.75
Tub hooker 7 4.75 Comoressor man 40.00 ver weelr
Ll - Unless otherwise mentioned the vaze is ver shift.
Tie losonotive runner also overateas the hoist on the incline tram and tue bravreman loads the cars fron the hover ct the field shaft and hooks tha cars et the incline tram
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Inf. Cir. No. 3174.
Tie above wage scale is based on $40.00 zine ore. If the vrice goes +o $45.00 and stays there for one vveex all faces are 2 autozetically raised 25 cents ner shift, and muckers sve raised one-half cent ver can.
In the same manner, for ever: $5.00 increase in the orice of zinc ore above $45.00 the vrazes ame raised at the saue rate, but for every drop. of $5.40 the wages are reduced. Wages are not reduced 'hen the ore write'drove below $40, 00, for this is the: base price for the wase scale, veelt is always allowed between the ware changes to maxe sure that the market will
not fluctuate above or below tne critical price
ae VEATILATION The open, bowldery ground which the ore is found contains con- Siderable quantities of inarcasite and occasional vocksts of gas, the ajor portion of which is carbon See: The oxidation of the marcasite males the ground very hct, and the pockets of gas are frequent enough to bea source of danger if artificial woutitation were not resorted to.
During 1927 there, were four blowers direct-connected to 2-horsevower motors >laced over churn-drill holes. These were enough to aid the natural ventilation at ths shaft and maintained toe air at the working face in 7004 condition, both a3 to purity and temperature. None, cf the wortsing faces ave Yer enough fron the shaft bottom to requ ire elaborate ve abilat— ing equipment. ss—
"MINTN COSTS. / 3 ee
Belov is the total cost of delivering a ton of or: into the mill hopper :-t ifine No. 3s. rn ore £ ove into the nill hopper
Cost of del joeiae 1 ton
Mining General Surface Total underground Expense Labor $0.4256 $9.0926 $¢0.1297 3 0.6479 Suvervision O27 9 0 0271 Compressed air, drills, oo. ete. 0756 20756 Power cost a 60473 si OK 1022 Exolosives 1169 - 1169 Other supplies 02235 ~0095 20318 Total $$ 6452 $ .1522 $ .1941 $ 1.0015
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Inf. Cir. Xo. 6174.
No vovwder men ars omloved ot this nine; the machine men load and fire tneir ovn holes.
The surface expense, "hich is directly anzlicable to underground operations, includes the hoist and screen room and the surface tram fron the field shafts to the mill hopper. This expense is hish as compared Fitna the mines in the Picher cams because ore vas being hoisted at three "Tield"™ snafts besides the mill shaft.
SUMMARY Of COSTS IN UNITS OF LABOR, POWER, AND SUPPLI=S
Mine No. 3, Tri-Statc District
Tons ore mined and hoisted - 132,384. Man hours Per cent of
Plriod covered - vear 1927. per total underground ton labor A. Labor
Brealting (drilling and blasting) 0.139 16.63
ici e) <a) ¢ a ea ne ee ae eae Megt eee Rewer 262 31.54
Haulage: end. A0lstine 2 vce ss casas jac 6306. . 43.78
DUDS VISION: -pctiain cia eee is-2 Go aus ee een -067 B.20
Total: Underpround Lavor' 1 aca eee eaiee 836 90300
General and Surface Tsb0r ccs Skee 059
Total Labor, Surface and Underground .. .905
Tons per man, totel underground 9,54 Tons per man, total underground and SUT LACE: 6 aw ews aces aie Bae hase ee eae etal we ee g.10 Labor, percentage of total cost 64.69 B. Power and sunvlies. Power. : ky. he. ver ton l. Air compression fg ela Sates 1.40 Ges HOLS SINS osx ess Bias: bie Se Rita raat 2.77 TOUAL DOVE? de ia ode kt we.o-e Soe Sac es ic: Sek?
Explosives - 20 ver cent gelatine, 0.875 found oer ton. Other supplies in percentage of total vower and sunnlies - 9.74. Supplies and pover, percentage of total cost - 35.31.
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