In ventilated tunnel fires, smoke and hot combustion products may form a layer near the ceiling and flow in the direction opposite to the ventilation stream. The existence of this reverse stratified flow has an important bearing on fire fighting and evacuation of underground mine roadways, tunnels and building corridors. In the present study, conducted by the National Institute for Occupational...

From 1973 through 1986, a total of 12 fires involving oil-flooded rotary screw compressors (OFRSC) were reported to the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Most of these incidents were attributed to faulty or bypassed safeguards, or improper maintenance. The cause of a fire in an OFRSC is unique when compared to other types of compressors. A compressor inspection checklist is provided...

Utilization of belt air in underground coal mines has been discussed extensively during the last decade. The Final Report of the Technical Study Panel on the Utilization of Belt Air and the Composition and Fire Retardant Properties of Belt Materials in Underground Coal Mining formed by the Miner Act of 2006 recommends research on leakage, use of booster fans, and escapeway safety. This paper di...

The most important aspect of the MINER Act is providing reliable communication for miners before and after tragic accidents. Reliable communication has always been a challenge in underground mines due to changing topologies and harsh environment. In addition, disasters disable electricity and communications cables, block tunnels and cause fire. These may damage the communication infrastructure ...

Fires caused by cables occur frequently in mines, which endanger the safety of workers. To explore characteristics a multilayer cable fire mine tunnel, simulations were carried out using Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS). The influence tray spacing, ignition position, and tunnel ventilation speed on studied. results showed that these factors change amount contact between air, heat accumulation, tra...

Drainage from metal-sulphide rich rocks may cause considerable environmental stress in the form of elevated sulphate and heavy metal contamination of the environment. Mine draining effects from closed mines may be abated using indigenous and introduced microbial communities for sulphate reduction and metal precipitation at the mining site. Here we characterized the general and sulphate reducing...

The acid mine drainage (AMD) impacted creek of the Carnoulès mine (Southern France) is characterized by acid waters with a high heavy metal content. The microbial community inhabiting this AMD was extensively studied using isolation, metagenomic and metaproteomic methods, and the results showed that a natural arsenic (and iron) attenuation process involving the arsenite oxidase activity of seve...

Through the years, mining and beneficiation processes produces large amounts of As-rich mine wastes laid up in huge tailings and open-air impoundments (Barroca Grande and Rio tailings) that are the main source of pollution in the surrounding area once they are exposed to the weathering conditions leading to the formation of AMD and consequently to the contamination of the surrounding environmen...

[1] We present anisotropy measurements from shear wave splitting along the Hector Mine rupture zone. Six major arrays were deployed in four locations in the year following the M7.1 Hector Mine earthquake. The dense station coverage, wide distribution of the arrays, and repeated deployments show a clear predominant fast direction and spatial variation of splitting along the fault but no resolvab...

Libby, Montana is the site of a large vermiculite deposit that was mined between 1920 and 1990 to extract vermiculite for commercial applications such as insulation, gardening products, and construction materials. The Libby vermiculite deposit also contains amphibole minerals including tremolite, actinolite, richterite, and winchite. Historically, Libby mine workers experienced high exposures t...