Oct 17, 2019· This type of surface mining, also known as hard rock mining, is typically employed to extract metal ores, like copper, gold, iron, and aluminum, and other minerals. Strip mining is a form of surface mining that is primarily used for coal excavation. The rock and dirt covering the ore is removed one strip at a time.

Surface mining techniques are categorized as either strip, open pit, or mountaintop removal. Strip mining is a method used on flat terrain and involves removing soil or rock above a layer of coal, exposing the coal seam for mining. One type of strip mining is contour mining, where .

Surface mining refers to the removal of the terrain surface to access minerals underneath. In particular, surface mining is used to retrieve sand, gravel, stones, coal, iron and other metals. There are five recognized types of surface mining, each with specific variations depending on the minerals being extracted. These include strip mining ...

Mining Methods: Part ISurface mining. ... Contour strip mining. ... this work quantitatively and qualitatively investigated the effect of openpit coal mining operations on rice paddy soils and ...

Jul 20, 2016· Contour (or collar) mining progresses in a narrow zone following the outcrop of a coal seam in mountainous terrain, the specific methods used in contour mining are referred to as haulback, boxcut, and blockcut mining. Contour mines are surface mines that mine coal in steep, hilly, or mountainous terrain.

STRIP MINING OF COAL: A FEDERAL RESPONSE TO STATE LEGISLATION There are three methods of surface or strip mining,' each developed for a particular type of landscape, area stripping, contour stripping and auger During the past thirty years, the amount of coal produced by strip mining .

Active Contour Surface Mine in West ia with Initial Reclamation Visible in Distance As coal removal proceeds around the mountain side, the excavated material from new overburden cuts is used to backfill the previous mining area to restore the premining contours of the land or Approximate Original Contour .

These mining categories are: strip mining, openpit mining, mountaintop removal, dredging and high wall mining. All methods of surface mining will remove the waste material, or overburden, above the desired resource. Surface mining is often preferred to subsurface (underground mining) by mining companies for several reasons.

The most economical method of extracting coal depends upon the depth and the quality of the coal seams. Coals are mined both from surface and underground. Contour mining is associated with coal. This bed of coal is located at an elevation in a mountain range or any other hilly area. It is a method of strip or surface mining.

Oct 18, 2017· Until the rise of mountaintop removal in the 1990s, eastern surface mines were relatively small and used a method of extraction mining called contour mining in which the coal operator made a cut into the side of the mountain at the level of the coal seam and then followed the seam along the contour of the mountain for as long as the seam ...

Jul 01, 2016· About 40 percent of the world's coal mines are the more damaging strip mines (also called open cast, open pit, mountaintop or surface mining). Strip mining impacts. Strip mining is highly destructive. Yet the industry often prefers to strip mine because it takes less labour and yields more coal than underground mining.

There are two basic types of stripmining in the eastern Kentucky coal field: contouror rimstripping, and areastripping. Augermining usually is employed as a supplement to contourmining; it is a means for working a seam beyond the point where removal of the overburden by stripping is economically feasible.

Coal is mined in Appalachia by both surface and underground mining techniques. Surface coal mining methods in the steep terrain of the central Appalachian coalfields include mountaintop removal, contour, area and highwall mining. Coal mining operations are found in Kentucky, West ia, ia ...

strip mining definition: a method of obtaining substances such as coal from the ground that involves removing the top layer.. Learn more.

Advantages of surface mining include economic and financial benefits for miners and communities and a safer alternative to pit mining, but its disadvantages include environmental impacts, such as erosion and contamination. Surface mining, also cal...

Feb 23, 2018· Surface mining is commonly used to extract coal and copper, and increasingly, precious metals like gold. Underground mining is used for gold, platinum, zinc, lead, and increasingly, coal. As can be seen, surface mining is much more advantageous than its counterpart.

"Strip mining" is the practice of mining a seam of mineral, by first removing a long strip of overlying soil and rock (the overburden).It is most commonly used to mine coal and lignite (brown coal).Strip mining is only practical when the ore body to be excavated is relatively near the surface.