Design fea­tures of gran­ite quar­ries

The devel­op­ment of gran­ite quar­ries has cer­tain dif­fer­ences from oth­er sol­id min­er­als. The fact is that when extract­ing gran­ite for the pro­duc­tion of crushed stone, the rock is crushed to the max­i­mum extent pos­si­ble dur­ing drilling and blast­ing oper­a­tions, which great­ly sim­pli­fies its extrac­tion and trans­porta­tion. How­ev­er, when it comes to stone extrac­tion to pro­duce mono­lith­ic blocks, it is cru­cial to main­tain the yield of large gran­ite blocks, which has a cor­re­spond­ing impact on the choice of tech­nol­o­gy, as well as on the require­ments for stor­age and trans­porta­tion.

In addi­tion, the extrac­tion method deter­mines the list of equip­ment that should be used at gran­ite quar­ries.

The fol­low­ing meth­ods are gen­er­al­ly used to extract gran­ite in quar­ries:
Drilling and blast­ing — a hole is drilled in the rock and explo­sives are placed in it. The explo­sion caus­es frag­ments of gran­ite to break off, and the right size is select­ed from among them. The sort­ed frag­ments are then sawn into slabs and trans­port­ed to their des­ti­na­tions.
Air cush­ion method — instead of explo­sives, a tank filled with pres­surised air is placed in the well. This method reduces the lev­el of risk and the num­ber of micro­c­racks in the rock, and it is also much eas­i­er to con­trol the fault.
The rock-cut­ting method is the most expen­sive, but at the same time the most effi­cient and safe method that min­imis­es risks and rock waste.
The bur­row­ing methodinvolves cut­ting the sep­a­rat­ed rock along the con­tour with spe­cialised equip­ment. Then wedges are installed to extract the stone. This method pro­duces rel­a­tive­ly sol­id stone blocks.
Qui­et explo­sion using expand­ing mix­tures. The prin­ci­ple of oper­a­tion is sim­i­lar to the bur­row­ing method, except for the absence of wedges and the use of spe­cial expand­ing mix­tures instead. This is a spe­cif­ic tech­nol­o­gy used in deposits with extreme­ly low ten­sile strength.

Before design­ing gran­ite quar­ries, it is nec­es­sary to car­ry out geo­log­i­cal explo­ration and geo­log­i­cal and eco­nom­ic assess­ment of the deposit, fol­lowed by the pro­tec­tion of reserves in the State Com­mit­tee on Min­er­al Resources. This allows us to estab­lish the pres­ence and loca­tion of gran­ite lay­ers, assess their qual­i­ty and poten­tial pro­duc­tion vol­ume. Geo­log­i­cal sur­veys also iden­ti­fy pos­si­ble geo­log­i­cal risks, such as fault­ing or water inflow, which could affect the safe­ty and sta­bil­i­ty of the quar­ry.

The design of gran­ite quar­ries is car­ried out in accor­dance with the cur­rent rules and reg­u­la­tions, that fall with­in the com­pe­tence of state super­vi­so­ry author­i­ties and ensure safe oper­a­tion of the pro­duc­tion and its fire safe­ty. The main ones are:

The Min­ing Law of Ukraine;
The Law of Ukraine ‘On Labour Pro­tec­tion’;
The Sub­soil Code of Ukraine;
Land Code of Ukraine;
Water Code of Ukraine;
The Law of Ukraine ‘On High Risk Facil­i­ties’;

NPAPP 0.00–1.24–10 Rules of labour pro­tec­tion dur­ing the devel­op­ment of min­er­al deposits by open pit min­ing;
NPAP 14.0–1.01–85 Rules of safe­ty and indus­tri­al san­i­ta­tion in the non-metal­lic ore indus­try;
NPAP 14.3–7.03–18 Require­ments for safe­ty and health pro­tec­tion of employ­ees of min­ing enter­pris­es with under­ground and open-pit min­ing meth­ods;
SOU‑N MPP 73.020–078‑1:2007 Norms of tech­no­log­i­cal design of min­ing enter­pris­es with open pit min­ing meth­ods;

The con­tents of the explana­to­ry note are pre­pared in accor­dance with the require­ments of the Order of the Min­istry of Indus­tri­al Pol­i­cy of Ukraine No. 221 dat­ed 07 May 2004 ‘On Approval of the Reg­u­la­tions on the Design of Min­ing Enter­pris­es of Ukraine and Deter­mi­na­tion of Min­er­al Reserves by the Degree of Pre­pared­ness for Extrac­tion’. The explana­to­ry note con­sists of the fol­low­ing sec­tions:

1. Intro­duc­tion

2. Gen­er­al plan and trans­port. The design of gran­ite quar­ries should take into account local con­di­tions, such as cli­mate, soil types, geo­graph­i­cal fea­tures and the pres­ence of set­tle­ments in the imme­di­ate vicin­i­ty. This helps to ensure con­ve­nient access to quar­ries, min­imise the neg­a­tive impact on the local pop­u­la­tion and the risk of envi­ron­men­tal dis­tur­bances.

3. Key tech­ni­cal solu­tions for the project. This sec­tion includes care­ful plan­ning of the quar­ry field devel­op­ment. Here, every detail has a sig­nif­i­cant impact and must be coor­di­nat­ed with the oth­ers. Start­ing from the selec­tion of the opti­mal min­ing method sep­a­rate­ly for each count­ing block in accor­dance with the loca­tion of san­i­tary pro­tec­tion zones and end­ing with the deter­mi­na­tion of the most suit­able route for the removal of min­er­als to the crush­ing and screen­ing plant.

4. Repair and stor­age facil­i­ties. The project should pro­vide for the estab­lish­ment of a repair ser­vice that will be respon­si­ble for sched­uled and emer­gency repairs of equip­ment. It should ensure con­stant mon­i­tor­ing of the tech­ni­cal con­di­tion of machin­ery and equip­ment, detect pos­si­ble break­downs in time and ensure their imme­di­ate repair.

5. Pow­er sup­ply, elec­tri­cal equip­ment and com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Due to the need to pow­er the crush­ing and screen­ing equip­ment, a gran­ite quar­ry project must include plan­ning of the pow­er sup­ply infra­struc­ture (pow­er lines, sub­sta­tions, dis­tri­b­u­tion points and oth­er nec­es­sary facil­i­ties). It is impor­tant to ensure the prop­er place­ment and pro­tec­tion of elec­tri­cal equip­ment, tak­ing into account elec­tri­cal safe­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty of the sys­tem.

6. Heat sup­ply, water sup­ply and drainage. Due to the extrac­tion of gran­ite at con­sid­er­able depths, prob­lems with water man­age­ment often arise. Ground­wa­ter can flood the quar­ry, which caus­es prob­lems with time­ly water pump­ing. The main task of the design­er here is to devel­op an effi­cient ground­wa­ter and sur­face water drainage sys­tem, as well as to ensure that the qual­i­ty of the water dis­charged from the quar­ry is mon­i­tored to suc­cess­ful­ly pre­vent pol­lu­tion of nat­ur­al sources.

7. Con­struc­tion solu­tions and con­struc­tion man­age­ment. The con­struc­tion man­age­ment of gran­ite quar­ries includes the devel­op­ment of a con­struc­tion plan, sequenc­ing of activ­i­ties, resource man­age­ment and coor­di­na­tion of exter­nal con­trac­tors. Con­struc­tion plan­ning should take into account the var­i­ous stages of the project, from prepara­to­ry work to the com­ple­tion of con­struc­tion, tak­ing into account time frames, bud­gets and resources.

8. Occu­pa­tion­al health and safe­ty, emer­gency pro­tec­tion, work­place safe­ty and fire safe­ty. Gran­ite quar­ries pose cer­tain risks to employ­ees asso­ci­at­ed with work­ing at heights, using heavy equip­ment and mov­ing vehi­cles. When design­ing quar­ries, health and safe­ty must be con­sid­ered by installing the nec­es­sary safe­ty mea­sures, train­ing work­ers in safe­ty, and pro­vid­ing appro­pri­ate pro­tec­tion and equip­ment.

9. Recla­ma­tion of the quar­ry. Even at the ini­tial stages of gran­ite quar­ry devel­op­ment, the pos­si­bil­i­ties of restor­ing and regen­er­at­ing the mined area and pre­serv­ing nat­ur­al plant and ani­mal species should be known.

Thus, design­ing gran­ite quar­ries is a com­plex process that requires a com­pre­hen­sive approach and con­sid­er­a­tion of many fac­tors. Ensur­ing sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion, envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty, occu­pa­tion­al safe­ty, con­sid­er­a­tion of local con­di­tions and the inter­ests of the sub­soil user and the com­mu­ni­ty are the main com­po­nents of suc­cess­ful gran­ite quar­ry design. The Insti­tute of Geol­o­gy offers its ser­vices in every­thing relat­ed to the devel­op­ment of gran­ite quar­ries — obtain­ing a spe­cial per­mit for the use of sub­soil (spe­cial per­mit), con­duct­ing a geo­log­i­cal and eco­nom­ic assess­ment, draw­ing up a field devel­op­ment project, pro­vid­ing geo­log­i­cal and sur­vey­ing sup­port, etc.
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