There was one day this summer when I got to go underground. Every two weeks, someone in the environmental department has to collect sump samples from the underground. There's a lot of groundwater around our mine which we pump out at a rate of about 1500 gallons/minute (which we then pipe back in for dust control; I can't help but roll my eyes at the redundancy). But in the low areas, water collects and erodes the rock which creates some pretty nasty stuff. This railing has had water dripping on it that's so acidic, it's almost eaten right through it!
Anyway, Lakin (the environmental summer student) and I got to go underground.
You can't see our whole get-up in this picture, but we were wearing the hard hats with the light clip and the light with it's own battery pack (that weighed about 5 pounds) attached to out belts. Also on our belts (not your average flimsy belt but, industrial, haul-you-out-of-a-sticky-situation belts) was a self-rescue canister in case there was a fire underground so we didn't get carbon monoxide poisoning. Also, we were wearing knee-high rubber boots. FUN!
Of course, we had to fulfill our primary purpose: collect samples. To do this, we had to wade out into the pools of water and fill up a jug, or turn on a valve and get sprayed with mud. Lakin and I hung back a little while our guide filled the jugs from the spray. :D
But we also got to have a tour of almost the whole underground. It's a good thing we had an underground supervisor with us because we would have been sooo lost, the whole thing is just a maze of tunnels with spray-painting on the wall to tell you where you are. This one says "1038 B. F. P." which means we are 1038 feet below the surface. At one point we were nearly 5000 feet (ok, so it was only 4985 feet) below the surface! That's almost to sea level!!
Underground, there is all the same types of mining tools that are used in the open pit: shovels, haul trucks, grinders and crushers, etc. Everything is just smaller. This is one of the haul trucks; it's only about 15 feet tall with 8 foot wheels, which is TINY for a haul truck.
One of the stops on the tour was to see the crystal cave. A few years ago, the miners opened up this cave after a blast. It wasn't lit up like it usually is on tours, so I didn't get a picture of the whole thing, but it was pretty big: about 30' high, 40' wide and 30' deep. And all the walls are lined in these kinds of crystals.
As always, the safety culture at Barrick is prevalent everywhere you go. On all the levels, right outside of the shaft elevator, this phrase was sprayed on the wall.
No comments:
Post a Comment