FANTOMAS,

Ramp details reposted below. Technical details were provided by my father, a mining engineer of nearly 40 years.

First, Nemis mentioned a 15ft X 15ft face for the ramp, so this obviously means that the ramp tunnel will be 15ft X15ft, which according to my father (assume all further technical details are provided by him), means that they will using one machine (drill).

This drill is NOT a like the diamond drills they use on surface. This drill (called a Jumbo) operates by hyrdaulic and compressed air power sourced from diesel engine driven pumps and compressors. The engines on underground equipment have srcubbers on the exhausts to eliminate emissions.

They will start the ramp by digging essentially a sink shaped like a right angle triangle on its side on surface to create a vertical face with a decline down to the face. Once this is prepared the drill can be wheeled down to the face to begin.

The drill will likely be using 16ft (5m) rods and normally they would do two runs (drill 5m, dig out the broken, loose rock called 'muck', and then drill another 5m) per day. Therefore, it is likely that ramp will advance at a pace of 10m per day, probably requiring 4.5 months to complete Phase 1 (roughly 1300m).

The muck will be hauled away form the ramp face with scooptram or LHD (load-haul-dump) or small dump trucks. Ususally there are openings created at regular intervals (perhaps every 100m) where the ramp will be widened to allow room to turn around machinery, and also allow for passing of vehicles.

They have to ventialte the face (the face is the wall of rock that is leading edge of the ramp that they are drilling on), so likley there will be 24" dia. vent hose (given the size of the ramp)run down and air will be circulated (sucking air out, and causing fresh air to be drawn down) by a large blower at surface.

They will also have to run pipes for pumping out water, which will no doubt accumlate at the face as they dig deeper - the water runs downhill and they will hit underground water sources as they dig.

Therefore, it easy to see how the deeper the go the more time consuming and labour intensive the process becomes.

They will likley stockpile the rock dug/hauled out of the ramp and surface perhaps for a month at a time and then haul it (that which they want tested) away by truck to the processing facility, which Nemis reported was about 50kms away by road.

Weather will no have impact on these operations. Obviously, once you are underground weather is not factor, and the deeper you get the warmer it gets. They will also likely put a door at surfcae to seal out the weather and control access, and they can easily heat the work area underground with portable heaters if need be.

Rergards,

B.