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Sudbury Basin

Returning green to a blackened landscape: Microbiologist opens MMTS week with talk on mine remediation using microbes – by Karen McKinley (Northern Ontario Business – April 15, 2019)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Nearly two centuries of mining in northeastern Ontario has left its mark with waste from thousands of mines.

But Nadia Mykytczuk said that waste can be turned into another mining opportunity and at the same time clean up the dirtier parts of the industry’s legacy.

Mykytczuk, a microbiologist, was the guest speaker at the kickoff luncheon for Modern Mining and Technology Sudbury Week (MMTS), hosted by the Greater Sudbury Development Corporation, on April 12.

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THE DRIFT: The cold, hard realities of mining on the moon: Greg Baiden Sudbury mining engineer takes pragmatic approach to space mining – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – April 10, 2019)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Greg Baiden once introduced himself at a NASA space mining conference in California as a “recovering asteroid miner.” The CEO of Penguin Automated Systems had been enlisted by the agency to bring a healthy dose of pragmatism to a roomful of high-minded scientists and entrepreneurs about the realities of mining in a hostile and extreme environment.

After listening to more than his share of science fiction stories over the years, Baiden felt he had to inject some Sudbury sensibility to the wider discussion.

So to establish his credentials, Baiden began his presentation by mentioning that his former employer, Inco (now Vale), has been mining the remnants of an asteroid impact in Sudbury for the past 130 years.

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Diamonds in the Rough: Meet Canada’s all-female mine rescue team – by Len Gillis (Sudbury Northern Life – April 12, 2019)

https://www.sudbury.com/

It was what happened in Sudbury three years ago that inspired a group of women to do something that had made them the darlings of the mine rescue world. Mine rescuer Kari Lentowicz of Saskatchewan was in Sudbury this week and remembered it well.

“Back in 2016 we were here in Sudbury at the International Mines Rescue Competition,” said Lentowicz on Wednesday when she spoke at the Workplace Safety North Mining Health and Safety conference.

“In that competition there were 189 competitors. Five were women. That was it.” That’s what prompted her to sit down with a group of friends and other mine rescue women to talk about creating their own all-female team of certified mine rescuers, something Lentowicz had been thinking about for several years.

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The mental stress of mining studied in Sudbury – by Mary Katherine Keown (Sudbury Star – April 12, 2019)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

When you take that deep dive down into the ground, your mental health can take a hit. Vale, Steelworkers Local 6500 and the Centre for Research in Occupational Safety and Health at Laurentian University have recently completed a large study looking at the impact of mining on mental health.

“Most of the measures were very similar to the (larger) population when it comes to depression, anxiety, fatigue and other things, but there were a couple of things that were a little bit higher than the general population,” Keith Hanson, occupational health and disability lead at Vale, said.

“Burn-out was a little bit higher and post-traumatic stress disorder was higher than the population.” The research was presented Thursday as part of Workplace Safety North’s mining health and safety conference, which took place in Sudbury.

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KGHM’s mines in Canada face uncertain future – Staff (Sudbury Star – April 11, 2019)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Poland’s KGHM, which operates mines in Sudbury, may freeze some projects in Canada or the U.S. if they require big investments, its chief executive told Reuters on Wednesday.

“We are not currently thinking about selling foreign assets,” said Marcin Chludzinski told Reuters. “We’re considering strategies for the next few years.” All of KGHM’s foreign mining projects except those in Chile have been put under review, he said.

“It’s not that we want to or have to sell,” Chludzinski told the news agency. “It’s more that we are looking at these assets as a strategic reserve. We’re considering actions similar to those we took at the Morrison mine (north of Sudbury), which is to freeze a project.”

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Top 10 Deepest Mines In The World: Most Of Them Are Gold Mines – by Vikas Shukla (Value Walk.com – April 10, 2019)

https://www.valuewalk.com/

South Africa is home to eight of the world’s top 10 deepest mines. The country has been one of the world’s largest gold producers for decades, even though gold production there has been declining in recent years. A mine is an artificially made pit from where minerals and other resources are extracted. The depth of a mine represents the elevation from the entrance to the deepest excavation point.

The ranking below includes only operational mines, not the ones that are no longer in operation. For instance, the Empire Mine in California has a depth of 2.08 miles, but it’s no longer in operation. Similarly, the Kolar Gold Fields in India, which was 2 miles deep, was shut down in 2001 due to low levels of output after producing gold for centuries.

When they run out of minerals at existing levels, mining companies prefer to go deeper in existing mines to extract more minerals instead of digging a new mine.

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Mining association no longer just about Sudbury: SAMSSA undergoing major changes to broaden reach – by Karen McKinley (Northern Ontario Business – April 8, 2019)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association (SAMSSA) is undergoing some major changes to broaden their reach. Among those changes will be a complete name change and new outreach strategy.

The mining service sector in Northern Ontario isn’t just about Sudbury, anymore, so it is making major changes to position itself as the unified voice for the whole of Northern Ontario.

“We want to be a pan-Northern Ontario association,” said Paul Bradette, director of business development. “The board had discussed this with members last September and approved a growth strategy.” He added the acronym has diminished, adding most people wouldn’t know what it stood for.

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THE DRIFT: Miner and designer balances dual roles: Sudbury’s Alicia Woods finds passion in mining industry – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – April 5, 2019)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

When Alicia Woods was vying to enter the mining industry, she knew that name recognition would at least get her foot in the door, but it would take hard work to prove she deserved to be there.

Woods is the daughter of Paul Marcotte who, along with his brothers and father, founded Sudbury-based Marcotte Mining Machinery Services in 1979, designing and manufacturing underground utility vehicles.

As a kid, Woods loved hanging around her dad in the shop, and it was her long-time dream to one day work alongside him in the industry. “He never made me feel like it wasn’t an industry for me,” she said. “I never once felt that it wasn’t for girls.”

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Cleanup of Sudbury’s Long Lake could begin this summer – by Staff (Sudbury Star – April 2, 2019)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

It appears the provincial government is about to act to clean the arsenic from a gold mine that operated more than a hundred years ago on Long Lake.

In a release, Nickel Belt MPP France Gelinas, said she received the good news in a letter from Greg Rickford, the minister of Energy, Northern Development and Mines. Long Lake is located in her riding.

“I have been in communication with (various) ministers asking for action on this dangerous situation,” Gelinas said. “This week I finally got some possible good news. In his response, the minister (Rickford) has confirmed that the clean up could, finally, begin this summer and continue into the autumn of 2022.”

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THE DRIFT: Smart helmet to improve safety, efficiency: Jannatec’s wearable device to roll out this spring – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – March 26, 2019)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

When it hits the market this spring, Jannatec Technologies’ smart helmet will function a lot like the modern smartphone – one communications device that incorporates multiple uses.

But the wearable gear is being designed for use deep underground to provide miners with higher visibility, radio frequency identification (RFID) tagging, proximity detection, biometrics monitoring, photography and video capabilities, and more.

“We try not to think of it as a helmet,” said Mark Burnett, an account representative with Jannatec. “We try to think of it as a platform that’s going to offer (mining) operations different capabilities and solutions that they may need to fit their unique problems, which is why it’s going to be a multi-faceted platform.”

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Mindset needs to change in mining: Sudbury risks having “someone else eating our lunch,” says CEMI top executive – by Karen McKinley (Northern Ontario Business – March 25, 2019)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Douglas Morrison says Sudbury’s mining sector has two choices: become a creator of change, or be a victim of it. That message had the attention of a packed auditorium at Dynamic Earth for the March 21 meeting of the Sudbury chapter of the Canadian Institute of Mining.

The CEO of the Centre of Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) explained long overdue major changes in operations are coming fast, but the industry is focusing too much on small areas like replacing machinery and digitization.

What really needs to change is the mindset of how entire mining operations are run. “If we want to make the process more efficient, we have to start at the back, not the front,” Morrison said.

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THE DRIFT: SymBot gleans data for improved mining operations – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – March 12, 2019)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Sudbury company on leading edge of data-mining software

When the world talks about the Sudbury mining supply and service cluster, it’s impossible not to think of Symboticware.

Specializing in the collection, storage and transmission of standardized data, the company is one of the pioneers that helped transform the city into the respected global centre of expertise it is today.

It’s led by its co-founder and president, Timmins-raised Kirk Petroski, who spent the first part of his career prospecting and conducting geotechnical work before transitioning into the digital side of the business, building websites and database portals for mining companies.

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Blast may have triggered quake in Sudbury: Vale – by Donald Macdonald (Sudbury Star – February 8, 2019)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

No serious damage to Garson Mine or nearby Nickel Rim Mine, companies say.

Work is proceeding at Garson Mine after an earthquake Wednesday that originated at the Vale site but was felt by people residing more than 10 kilometres away.

Vale spokesperson Angie Robson said the company experienced a 2.9 magnitude seismic event at the 5,200 level of the mine shortly after 5 p.m. Fortunately, “no employees were injured as a result of this event,” she noted, and “work is continuing as normal, except in restricted areas of the mine.”

Robson said there was no damage to mobile equipment, “although there is some displaced rock that needs to be addressed, as well as some repair work to infrastructure in the affected area of the mine.”

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Sudbury conference imagines mining with no tailings or blasting – by Donald Macdonald (Sudbury Star – February 7, 2019)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Sudburians are used to feeling the shudders from underground blasting and seeing the night sky lit up from slag, but mines of the future could be much more subtle and efficient.

“One of the things we’re looking at is mining with no tailings,” said Carl Weatherell, executive director of the Canada Mining Innovation Council, at the Beyond Digital Transformation conference on Wednesday.

As well, companies are exploring how to “get rid of drill and blast,” he said, which apart from being dangerous is “perhaps not the most effective way to break rock and is not creating value.”

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Sudbury’s CEMI signs mining deal with university in Peru – by Staff (Sudbury Star – February 7, 2019)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

The Sudbury-based Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation has signed an agreement with university in Peru to develop and promote mine innovation.

Moises Ronald Vázquez Caicedo Ayras, president at the Universidad Nacional del Centro del Perú (UNCP), and Douglas Morrison, president and CEO of the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI), said in a release they have signed a memorandum of understanding.

The deal is “a first step in developing a partnership to advance mining innovation programs that include technology and knowledge transfer, demonstration projects, skills development for students, faculty and professionals.

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