Since the 1990s, ‘mine-to-mill’ studies have evaluated the impact of blast fragmentation on downstream plant throughput. This was because crushing and grinding circuits (in particular, SAG mills) are sensitive to feed size and the amount of fines generated from blasting. Significant gains in grinding circuit efficiency could be achieved by controlling and optimising blast fragmentation.
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In 2000, International Caving Study (ICS) published a practical manual on block caving by Dr. Dennis Laubscher. This first comprehensive block caving publication was co-authored by several industry experts, including Dr. Alan Guest and Jarek Jakubec of SRK Consulting (Canada) Inc. Unfortunately, the distribution of this publication was not widely available. Meanwhile, the demand for
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Mass mining including block caving, incline caving, front caving, sub-level caving and sub-level retreat are the principal mining methods for primary diamond deposits worldwide. Diamonds have only been mined on an industrial scale within the past 150 years, mainly as open pit mines. Underground mining of those deposits was first implemented within the second half
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