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Underground mining (soft rock) refers to a group of underground mining techniques used to extract coal, oil shale and other minerals or geological materials from sedimentary ("soft") rocks. Because deposits in sedimentary rocks are commonly layered and relatively less hard, the mining methods used differ from those used to mine deposits in igneous or metamorphic rocks (see Underground mining (hard rock)). Underground mining techniques also differ greatly from those of surface mining.
[edit] Methods
- Longwall mining: Longwall mining machines consist of multiple coal shearers mounted on a series of self-advancing hydraulic ceiling supports. Almost the entire process can be automated. Longwall mining machines are about 800 feet (240 meters) in width and 5 to 10 feet (1.5 to 3 meters) tall. Longwall miners extract "panels" - rectangular blocks of coal as wide as the mining machinery and as long as 12,000 feet (3,650 meters). Massive shearers cut coal from a wall face, which falls onto a conveyor belt for removal. As a longwall miner advances along a panel, the roof behind the miner's path is allowed to collapse.
- Room-and-pillar mining or continuous mining: Room and pillar mining is commonly done in flat or gently dipping bedded ores. Pillars are left in place in a regular pattern while the rooms are mined out. In many room and pillar mines, the pillars are taken out, starting at the farthest point from the mine haulage exit, retreating, and letting the roof come down upon the floor. Room and pillar methods are well adapted to mechanization, and are used in deposits such as coal, potash, phosphate, salt, oil shale, and bedded uranium ores.
- Blast mining – An older practice of coal mining that uses explosives such as dynamite to break up the coal seam, after which the coal is gathered and loaded onto shuttle cars or conveyors for removal to a central loading area. This process consists of a series of operations that begins with "cutting" the coalbed so it will break easily when blasted with explosives. This type of mining accounts for less than 5% of total underground production in the U.S. today.
- Shortwall mining– A coal mining method that accounts for less than 1% of deep coal production, shortwall involves the use of a continuous mining machine with moveable roof supports, similar to longwall. The continuous miner shears coal panels 150-200 feet wide and more than a half-mile long, depending on other things like the strata of the Earth and the transverse waves.
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