Mining Museum in India

With the essence of preserving history of the nation, museums are built to display the artifacts of the old age works. A

rtifacts can be anything from coins, paintings and the display of the objects or the working procedures. India is well known for mining of the gold since first millennium BC. However, there has never been made an effort to build and preserve the artifacts of the age old mining methods in the Kolar Gold Fields to display it to the future generations. While on other side, the coal mining that has started in the year 1774 in India has been artificially reproduced in the Science and Technology museum to remember the history of the nation towards the technological growth.

One of the Science and Technology Museum that incorporates the replica of the mine workings is Birla Industrial and Technological Museum. 

The museum building has a fascinating story in itself from being a luxurious living mansion of Tagore’s to becoming a first science and technological museum of India named after one of the famous business man, G.D. Birla. He contributed the whole mansion towards developing a beautiful science park in the midst of Kolkata, capital city of West Bengal and the then most modern city of India.

The Museum was inaugurated in 1959. While the Mock up coal mine was set up in 1983. While only mining people have the knowledge of underground scenario, it is an interesting model to represent the scenario to the general public. They claim it to be the only kind which has been developed across the country for display to the public.

The model incorporates the coal mining method which represents the people excavating the coal manually and with the help of the machinery such as coal cutting machines. The illumination methods inside the deep underground mine have been demonstrated to the people before the era of electric lamps. The air flow in the model has also been setup using fans to recognize the efforts towards the ventilation in the mining scenario to direct the fresh air in the working areas. They have also incorporated the support systems used in the mine to support the roof from falls.

Museum people have made up a fantastic effort towards creating a replica of the mine to display it to the general public.

There should be more museums built to show the different types of the mining methods not only in coal but also in metal and display it to the general public. This will not only build up the awareness among the public but also boost the tourism in India. 

What are the different stages of mine life?

                      When a person wants to achieve a goal, he follows a series of steps to meet the specific requirements of the goal. 

                     For an example, let's say for cooking, the first stage includes to find the things to cook such as vegetables, cookery which can be found in supermarkets.The second stage of cooking include the quantity required to cook which needs to bought. The things that are need to be done to vegetables is the third stage which includes cutting, heating the pan. The final stage of cooking is to cook the items and it finishes your goal of cooking. The first three stages are as important as the last stage, but the last stage holds the prime importance as everything depends on its success.

                     A similar story runs around in mining.  First stage is to inspect the locations to find the type of minerals present at that location which is called prospecting. Once the minerals are found, the quantity of the minerals, depth of the deposit and the surroundings of the mineral can be investigated which is known as exploration. To reach the deposit, a pathway needs to be prepared which can be removal of overburden or declines or shafts and crosscuts which is known as development. The most important stage of the mine life is exploitation of the mineral i.e. extraction of the mineral which can be done by several methods. While the cooking has only four stages, mining has fifth stage known as reclamation which is to fill up the area with other material such that there are no pot holes created or to make that useful. 

Prospecting:

                    There are different types of methods to find the potential locations of the minerals such as 

1. Geological methods
2. Geo-chemical methods 
3. Geophysical methods

Geological methods can be used to find the minerals with the help of visual inspection which can be found on the earth surface. 

Geo-chemical methods can be best describes as some plants are grow in abundance at the sites of the certain minerals which makes geologist job easy to make a guess of the minerals according to the surroundings.

Geophysical methods make use of gravitational, seismic, electrical, magnetic, electromagnetic and radiometric methods to find the minerals inside the mother earth. 

Exploration:

               This is the stage where the extents of the mineral are found by drilling and collecting the core logs. The tonnage calculations and the grade determinations are made to estimate the value of the deposit. The feasibility studies are conducted to categorize the mineral into reserves or the future resources which simply means if the mineral can be extracted with the existing technology economically or which is not economically at current state and the up-gradation of the technology can make the extraction of the mineral economical.

Development:

               Development depends on the depth of the mineral deposits which may be characterized as the near the earth surface deposits and the deeply buried mineral deposits that are characterized based upon the value of the mineral. 

For near surface mineral deposit, the overburden rock/soil  is stripped covering the deposit to gain access for exploitation of the mineral which become the surface mining methods. 

For deeply buried mineral deposits. the openings are excavated such as shafts, declines, adits, inclines to reach the deeply buried deposits to prepare for underground mining methods.

Exploitation:

              Prime important stage of mining is started when enough development is done to ensure that production once started continues uninterrupted. The development goes on in succession with the production. There are different mining methods used to exploit a mineral from the mother earth. The mining methods are dependent on the type, depth and extent of the mineral deposit. Safety, technology, environmental concerns and economics ultimately derive the selection of the mining method. On a broad scale, the mining methods are classified into

1. Surface Mining Methods
2. Underground Mining Methods

Reclamation:

            The reclamation of the mine site is of paramount importance. The plans of the reclamation should be submitted before the development of the mine is started which ensure the goal of sustainability. The planned works during the reclamation process are to restore the land surface and make the plantations on that area to make it habitable and monitor the water quality through the years. The old mine sites have been converted into national parks, golf courses. lakes, underground storage facilities, solid waste disposal areas and others which benefits the society in one form or the other. 

                      

                  This is a cyclic process, the available land is prospected, explored, mined and reclaimed. 

Picture Sources:

911metallurgist.com

evancollis.com.au

miningglobal.com

uky.edu

technology.infomine.com