19/03/2024, 15:10 Mining Levels: Stations, Drifts, & Crosscuts

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Mining Levels: Stations, Drifts, & Crosscuts

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Lateral Development Table of Contents

In tabular, dipping lodes and thick massive deposits the ore bodies are
developed laterally at several horizons spaced at more or less regular
vertical intervals. In areas of high relief each horizon may be developed by driving an adit into
the side of the hill, from which branch headings are driven as required.

When the main extraction opening is a shaft, the horizons or “levels” are developed from
stations cut into the side of the shaft. Shaft stations usually are partly cut and timbered during
shaft-sinking operations to avoid later damage to the permanent shaft timbers from blasting
against them when level development is begun. Special shaft timbering is required at the
stations, and by installing it at the time the shaft is being sunk, the work of tearing out regular
shaft sets and replacing them with station sets later on is obviated. By cutting the stations
during shaft sinking, level development may be begun on one or several levels at a time with
minimum delay as soon as the shaft has been completed.

A level comprises lateral workings (stations, drifts, and crosscuts) at approximately the same
horizon or elevation, though the term “level” is often employed loosely to designate all
workings tributary to the level proper. Level development provides haulage ways and means of
access to the working places. The main drifts and crosscuts serve as a base from which to drive
auxiliary drifts, crosscuts, raises, and winzes for the purpose of exploring and blocking out the
ore bodies and preparing them for economical extraction by stoping. They also serve as
airways for ventilation of the workings, afford drainage facilities, and carry compressed-air and
water lines and electric wiring for operation of mining equipment.

Level Interval
The vertical distance between main levels is commonly 100, 125, or 150 feet, although intervals
as low as 50 feet and as high as 250 or 300 feet sometimes are employed. In many instances
arbitrary intervals of 100 to 150 feet are satisfactory, but in others the most suitable and
economical interval can be determined only by careful weighing of a number of factors
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governed by the shape and dip of the lode, position of the shaft in relation to the ore bodies,
distribution of and distance between separate ore bodies, persistence of the ore between
levels, and physical characteristics of the ore and wall rocks, which, in turn, determine the
mining method to be employed.

These and other factors are discussed in an earlier Bureau of Mines publication. In this
publication the author has produced a set of curves showing the relationship between cost per
ton of ore mined and level interval for shrinkage stoping, horizontal cut-and-fill stoping, and
square-set-and-fill stoping based upon estimates of development-costs and of the number of
tons of ore developed per vertical foot for different level intervals under a series of assumed
conditions. These curves indicate broadly that for these methods of mining the cost per ton of
ore mined decreases rapidly from intervals of 60 feet to intervals of 100 to 140 or 150 feet, but
very slowly, if at all, for greater intervals.

It is obvious that, other things being equal, the greater the amount of ore developed per foot
of development headings driven, the lower will be the cost of development per ton of ore
mined. Were no other factors to be considered, it might be concluded that the greater the
level interval, the less the development and, hence, the lower the cost of development per ton
of ore.

Within variable limits this is broadly true, but other factors enter in to establish these limits.
Thus, if the interval is too great, difficulties in ventilation may be experienced; the cost of
driving connecting raises between levels usually increases rapidly beyond lengths of 100 to 150
feet; in irregular, erratic deposits a long level interval usually will not serve to explore the ore
bodies adequately; or it may require so long a time to mine out the ore between two levels
that costs of level maintenance will be excessive and the stope walls may become so heavy
that stopes cannot be kept open long enough to permit extraction of all the ore.

A short level interval has the following advantages:

1. More thorough exploration is possible, which is especially important in irregular, erratic

deposits where the ore is not continuous;
2. shorter connecting raises are required between levels;
3. handling of steel, explosives, and timber into the stopes is facilitated;
4. more points of attack by stoping can be made available;
5. in heavy ground requiring the use of slow extraction methods the time required to work
out a stope is less than with a high interval, and since the weight on a stope or
sloughing of the walls often increases considerably the longer it is kept open, expense
of maintenance and loss of ore may be decreased considerably with a short interval;
6. good ventilation usually is maintained more easily.

Among the disadvantages of the shorter level interval are:

1. Greater development cost due to increased number of stations, greater footage of drifts
and crosscuts with correspondingly more trackage and pipelines;
2. more levels to maintain;

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3. a greater proportion of the ore tied up in drift and floor pillars, which may have to be
left permanently or extracted later at considerable extra expense.

The stoping method to be employed may have an important bearing on the level interval. Thus
if the mining system requires grizzly levels above the haulage levels, or if floor pillars are
required below the drifts, the effective stoping height will be reduced considerably; and if the
level interval is short, the pillars will constitute a large proportion of the ore between levels.

Where block caving is the mining method employed haulage levels generally are located to
come under or near the bottom of the ore body, and in modern practice high columns of ore
up to 300 feet or more are undercut and caved in one lift. Opening of grizzly and undercutting
levels above the main level is a part of stope development that will be discussed later.

In sublevel stoping a level interval of 200 feet or more usually is advantageous if the ore body
is thick or deep enough.

If ground conditions require short stope lifts for rapid working out of the stopes before weight
or sloughing becomes excessive, or if erratic ore occurrence demands a short level interval for
prospecting purposes, it may be most economical to drive the haulage ways in the footwall
and either to crosscut to the lode at frequent intervals (connecting the crosscuts with
extraction drifts in the ore) or to drive inclined raises in rock from the haulageway to the
bottom of the stopes for ore extraction. Footwall drifts, of course, add to the cost of dead work
but may materially reduce the cost of maintaining the haulageways.

In tabular deposits dipping at flat angles, a given vertical interval between levels obviously will
provide a longer stope lift measured on the dip; and the flatter the dip, the greater the relative
length of the stope lift. Such deposits usually are mined through inclined shafts, and the level
interval is measured along the dip rather than vertically and determined by the height of stope
desired or by the requirements for prospecting the ore bodies.

In flat-lying deposits occurring in the form of disconnected ore bodies at different horizons the
level interval may be variable, and levels may be established at elevations to match these
horizons.

Where the ore is in widely separated shoots along a vein or fault or in the form of irregular
disconnected bodies separated by barren rock the dead work required to get from one ore
body to another may be reduced considerably if conditions are such that the ore can be mined
from sublevels not connected to the shaft and the ore transferred to one main haulage level.

If a dipping vein deposit is worked through a vertical shaft in the footwall, crosscuts from it to
the lode become progressively longer on each successive level, and dead work on the lower
levels will be excessive, especially if the level interval is short or the dip flat. The choice is then
between a high level interval or an inclined shaft, although a vertical shaft starting in the
hanging wall and passing through the lode midway between the top and bottom of the ore
will reduce the dead work considerably.

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Sizes of Drifts & Crosscuts

The size of headings will be influenced by such considerations as strength of ground and
requirements as to timbering for its support; type of haulage to be employed, whether hand or
animal tramming, storage-battery or trolley locomotives, and size of cars to be used; type of
loading chutes or platforms; economical size from the standpoint of cost of driving; stoping
method to be followed; ventilation requirements; and amount of water to be drained through
ditches.

The size of main openings with respect to requirements for ventilation, haulage, and drainage
has been discussed already in connection with the driving of adits. The minimum size to meet
these requirements is generally desirable from the standpoint of cost of driving and
maintenance. When drifting in ore that stands well, it may be more economical to drive drifts
larger than the minimum, especially if mechanical mucking is employed, since the cost per foot
will not increase in proportion to the increase in size, whereas the cost per ton of ore broken in
the drifts will decrease with increased size of heading. At one large gold mine in Canada it was
found that by driving wide drifts the cost per ton of ore from the drifts was only 1.8 times the
cost per ton of stope ore. In steeply dipping tabular deposits, development drifts in ore are
often driven the full width of the ore if it is not too wide. If the ore is thick or the horizontal
section of the ore body is wide by reason of its flat dip, the drift is often carried along the
footwall and is the most economical size, first cost and maintenance cost considered.

The stoping method to be employed may influence the size of the drifts. Thus, if shrinkage or
cut-and-fill stoping is to be done directly on the drift timbers, it may be desirable to drive high
drifts rather than return later and take down backs preparatory to stoping. On the other hand,
if pillars are to be left over the drifts and the stopes silled at a higher level, the drift would be
kept low to take as little height from the stoping lift to the next level as possible.

Table 16 gives data on dimensions of drifts and crosscuts that are typical of American practice.

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Drifting and crosscutting practices have been discussed by Gardner in an earlier Bureau of
Mines publication.

In general, the same types of rounds, methods of drilling, blasting, mucking, and ground
support are employed as those previously discussed under the caption Methods, Equipment,
and Costs of Driving Adits.

Cost of Driving Drifts & Crosscuts

Costs of lateral development vary between rather wide limits and depend on the size of the
headings; nature of the ore and rock, its drillability, breakability, and ground support needed;
rate of driving; type of equipment, whether hand or mechanical loading is employed; wage
rates and efficiency of labor; and management. These points have been discussed already
under Costs of Driving Adits. It has also been pointed out that driving costs will depend on the
amount of overhead they must carry and thus that at a producing mine where such costs are
distributed between production and development, the unit cost may be considerably lower
than where development work only is being done.

Table 17 presents typical drifting and crosscutting costs.

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The figures are not necessarily directly comparable, even where they cover costs under similar
conditions because of variations in the methods employed by different companies in
distributing overhead charges, power costs, etc.

Table 18 gives typical performance, man-hour, and supply-consumption data on drifting and
crosscutting

Plan Of Level Lay-Out

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The level lay-out will depend on the size, shape, dip, and distribution of the ore bodies, the
strength of the ore and wall rocks, the mining method to be employed, the anticipated rate of
production, and the type of haulage.

In the Tri-State and Southeast Missouri districts, wide, flat, bedded deposits of firm ore with
strong capping are mined by breasting out

the full width and height of the ore but leaving pillars for support of the back. The level plan
thus becomes the ore outline. If the shaft is sunk outside the ore body, a short connecting
crosscut from the shaft, and perhaps others to separate ore bodies, constitute all the
development work required, the ore being mined as the workings advance. (Fig. 55.)

Figure 56, A, shows a partial plan of a level at the Morning mine in Idaho, where the ore is in a
vein 6 to 30 feet wide, dipping at 80° to nearly vertical. The deep levels are developed by a
shaft in the foot-wall sunk from an adit level. Levels are established at 200-foot vertical

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intervals, and level development comprises the cutting of shaft stations and skip pockets,
crosscuts to the vein with extensions to provide room for tail track, pump, and motor-charging
stations near the shaft and drifts on the vein. Drifts are 13 by 13 feet in cross section and are
timbered with standard drift sets.

Where the vein is much wider or flatter, as at the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mine, crosscuts are
driven from the shaft or incline to and through the ore, but more than one drift may be
required to facilitate

rapid removal of broken ore from the stopes. (Fig. 56, B and C.) Here the dip is 40° to 50° and
the footwall drift (fig. 56, C) is used as a main haulageway and base from which to drive rock
raises to the upper part of the stopes. If the ore were the same width and vertical, a single
extraction drift through the center might be employed; or, where very wide, two or more
parallel drifts might be required.

Figure 57, A, is a plan of the 550-foot level of the Hollinger mine in Ontario as it was in 1924
and where a network of parallel and cross lenses or veins of ore (shown in solid black) is
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developed from a main haulage drift in the footwall of the ore zone, from which crosscuts are
driven approximately at right angles and about 300 feet apart to intersect the various veins.
Extraction drifts are then driven in the veins from these crosscuts.

Figure 57, B, is part of a level plan at the Homestake mine (1930). The ore body is wide and the
ore was mined in transverse shrinkage stopes between pillars, which were mined later by
square-set stoping.

Two main haulage drifts were driven, one in the hangingwall and one in the footwall, which
were connected at 100-foot intervals by extraction crosscuts through the ore as shown.

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In tabular, dipping ore bodies where the ground is heavy, the drifts may be driven in waste in
the footwall and parallel to the lode to reduce the cost of drift maintenance. From the footwall
drift, rock raises may then be driven to the sills of the stopes, or crosscuts may be driven to the
vein and connected by short drifts for ore-extraction purposes; the latter may be abandoned as
soon as the stope section above has been mined out. If, in addition, the dip is fairly flat and the
stopes must be filled (cut-and-fill or square-set-and-fill stopes)

one drift may be driven in the ore or in the footwall for extraction of ore from the stopes above
the level and another in the hanging wall, through which waste may be hauled and dumped
into the stopes below the level.

Figure 58 shows the level-development plan (1929) of the Inspiration mine, where large bodies
of low-grade copper ore of the “porphyry” type are mined by block caving. Note the equal
spacing of drifts and standard curves to facilitate rapid movement of ore trains.

Other level plans or patterns differ in detail, but those mentioned are typical.

Shaft-station plans or “plats” are of two general kinds— (1) those in which a connecting
crosscut or station is driven straight out from the hoisting compartments (fig. 59, A) and (2)
those in which the drift or connecting crosscut is driven parallel to the shaft (fig. 59, B).

In general, the first plan is employed where the loaded mine cars are hoisted to surface on
cages or where they are dumped directly into skips without intervening storage pockets, and
occasionally where pockets are employed. With this arrangement, trains of cars must be
uncoupled for hoisting or for dumping one at a time.

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With the second plan, trains of cars may be run past the shaft and dumped, without
uncoupling, into skip pockets or through short

chutes directly into the skips. Where large tonnages are handled, this plan usually will facilitate
more rapid and efficient ore handling.

The subject of shaft stations and skip pockets will be discussed in greater detail under
“Handling and Haulage of Ore.”

Pump rooms and sumps (fig. 59, B), car-repair shops, battery-charging stations, and
locomotive barns often are situated near the shaft, and the details of the level plan will vary
with their size, shape, and position.

by David March 29, 2017 Methods, Mining

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