Glossary of Mining Terms
Adit: A short tunnel used to access a main working. Can be horizontal or inclined
Blasting: Detonation of explosives to fracture rock, as in tunneling.
Breccia: An intensely broken body of rock with fractures filled by minerals.
Concentration: Ore recovery process which includes crushing and grinding to free the ore minerals from the gangue minerals, thus producing an ore concentrate (containing say 85% or more of ore minerals) which can be economically shipped to a smelter for copper recovery.
Dip: Inclination of a plane or stratum; measured at right angle to strike.
Drill-hole: Machine made perforation in rocks to discover or evaluate its ore content; it general can be a hammer drill-hole (produces rock chips, is fast and low cost) or a coring drill hole (produces a cylindrical rock continuous sample cut with a diamond coring ring tool; it is more expensive but provides more data).
Drilling: Perforation of holes in rock for blasting or exploration.
Electrowinning: Cathodic recovery of metals from a pregnant leach solution; abbreviated EW.
Fault: A fracture in a rock which produces movement (they go from tens of meters to many kilometers).
Fold: A bend in a strata or series of strata.
Gangue: Minerals without commercial value in any ore.
Grams per liter: Usual concentration measuring unit (G/L; say copper content in heap leaching pregnant solution or PLS).
Heap: An accumulation of ore or waste; can be conical or truncated conical or trapezoidal.
Heap-leaching: Leaching of ore in heaps; a low cost technique to recover, for example copper from oxide ores.
Industrial test: A medium scale test to demonstrate industrial operation feasibility (hundreds of tons to thousands of tons of ore).
Intrusive: A rock body which penetrated pre-existing rocks in a fluid or plastic state.
Joint: A small fracture in a rock, without producing movement.
Leaching: Literally “washing with acid” a rock to recover metal values in solution.
Leaching period: Time lapse for programmed optimum metal recovery.
Liters per second: L/sec.; usual water well production or leaching solution volume measuring unit.
Magnetic: A mineral or rock which has been magnetized and exerts magnetic attraction.
Manto: A layered ore deposit, in which the ore follows internal rock cavities (pores).
Ore: Minerals with commercial value; it could be a rock (e.g., Limestone) or valuable minerals included in a rock (e.g.: copper ore minerals in a volcanic rock).
Ore grade: Content of valuable metal or non-metal in a rock (e.g.: 3 % Cu; 20 G/ton Au; 2 Oz. Ag/ton).
Ore shoot: A major vein or series of veins.
Oxide ore: The valuable oxidized form of a certain element (say, oxidized copper ores; this could be oxides, carbonates, chlorides, etc.).
Pilot test: A small-scale test to demonstrate the feasibility of a new metallurgical technique (hundreds of kilograms to several tons of ore).
Quarry: An open-cast working.
Recovery: Percentage of valuable material (rock, ore or metal) which can be recovered from a deposit (e.g., 85% mining ore recovery; 90% leach recovery rate).
Sedimentary rock: A rock formed by sedimentation of broken rock or mineral fragments.
Shaft: A vertical excavation in rock; usually has a square base, long and narrow.
Shear: Tension fracture; many can occur together forming shear-zone as in some faults.
Solvent extraction: Recovery of a valuable metal from a solution using an organic extractant; abbreviated SX.
Stratification: Structural attitude of a series of strata (e.g., horizontal, vertical or any other).
Stratum: A layer of rock formed by any process volcanic or sedimentary; plural is strata; also called bed.
Strike: Direction of any horizontal line in a stratum.
Sulfide ore: The valuable sulfide form of a metal (as in CuS, copper monosulfide).
Trench: A long and narrow superficial working made to examine underlying rocks.
Tunnel: A horizontal excavation in a mountain; usually long and narrow.
Vein: A fracture filled with ore.
Volcanic rock: A rock formed by volcanic processes.
Waste: Rock with no commercial value; also may mean rejects from ore processing.
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