US Forest Service considers using explosives to bring down trees
from Missoulian
Paul Bunyan wouldn't have known what to make of Gordon Ash's little logging crew in the Pioneer Mountains. Instead of axes or saws, the U.S. Forest Service team went after trees with sticks of high explosive. "You'd calculate the proper amount of explosive, and then fix that on the tree with shrink wrap," Ash said. "You'd put it right where a face-cut would be, and sever it off right at the point where you put the explosive - almost like adirectional fall. The idea is to link as many of those trees as possible to be efficient. In three and a half days, we did 500 trees."  More
 

Drilling prospects bring land rush to Illinois
from The Associated Press via Fox News
Across several southern Illinois counties, there's a land rush emerging. And it's the potential of once-inaccessible, underground oil and natural gas that's fueling it. Out-of-staters recently have converged on Hamilton, Saline and Wayne County to scour through property records and establish who owns underground mineral rights their clients or companies may be able to lease for drilling.   More
 

Providing Information to Manage Your Drilling and Blasting Thunderbird has been supplying drill instrumentation solutions to the mining industry for 25 years. The products range from the DEI Plus drill monitor to the advanced DEI+Nav guidance system. The Datavis Drill and Blast software is now available from Thunderbird. It is the most comprehensive D&B software available. mining@tbirdpac.com more

Robots critical for mining industry
from The Vancouver Sun
The message did not sit well with John Meech's students. Back in 2003, the veteran professor of mining at the University of British Columbia began telling students to prepare for a ground-shaking transition into automated mining equipment: robots. Think driverless dump trucks, remote-operated drilling vehicles, and other craft to do difficult or dangerous work underground.   More
 

Conflict over West Bay quarrying
from Cayman Free Press
The Central Planning Authority and Water Authority-Cayman are at odds on the legality of ongoing excavation at the twin West Bay quarries known as Uncle Luke's Pond and Jackson's Pond. The planning authority has determined the activity "is exempt from enforcement action" because quarrying has been occurring for more than three years. That appears to contradict a legal opinion the planning authority sought and received in 2003.   More
 

Gas-rich states lose fracking lottery
from Reuters
While Pennsylvania, northwestern Louisiana and gas-rich areas around the Gulf of Mexico are losing jobs and revenue as the fracking industry shrinks after a price collapse, oil-rich North Dakota and Texas are in the midst of a boom. Other winners in the fracking lottery include central and southern Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio and Wyoming, where the economy is expanding and revenues are climbing.   More
 

Explosives company hopes to strengthen brand in West Africa
from Creamer Media's Mining Weekly
Explosives company BME says participation in events like this year's West African Mining and Power Exhibition (Wampex) is compulsory for companies wanting to build their brands in the West African region. BME marketing manager Charles Hurly notes that increased interest in the mineral wealth of West Africa, paired with demand for surface and underground explosives and technologies, as well as increased activity by South African companies in the region, demands that mining brands enter the West African market.   More
 

AEL Mining Services Using world-class technologies, AEL unearths wealth in the countries in which it operates, providing world class mining solutions in all key mining, quarrying and construction applications, including: Open cut - diamonds, platinum, copper Open cast - coal, iron ore, manganese Underground massive - diamond, nickel Underground narrow reef - gold, platinum, uranium Dimensional stone quarrying Aggregate stone quarrying more

Haiti hopes ore find will spur mining boom
from The Associated Press via KHQ-TV
Its capital is blighted with earthquake rubble. Its countryside is shorn of trees, chopped down for fuel. And yet, Haiti's land may hold the key to relieving centuries of poverty, disaster and disease: There is gold hidden in its hills - and silver and copper, too.   More
 

Miners call for policy reform in Zimbabwe
from UPI
Phineas Moyo, 31, works in a small mine and as a farmer in Mberengwa, a district in southern Zimbabwe. He is married and has two children. His wife is pregnant with their third child. She is a housewife and also takes care of the family vegetable garden for household consumption.   More
 

Omnia starts up new Sasolburg nitric acid plant
from Creamer Media's Engineering News
Chemicals services group Omnia has started operations at its new nitric acid complex in Sasolburg, which the group built to ensure security of supply for its explosives and fertilizer businesses. The plant would alleviate increasing nitric acid shortages, producing 1000 t/d of nitric acid, which is 40 percent more than the group's current capacity, MD Rod Humphris reported.   More
 

Boy's wish is 'to see fireballs'
from Calaveras Enterprise
An 8-year-old Texas boy battling terminal leukemia had an explosive time at the Carson Hill Rock Quarry recently. Evan Lacks of Tomball, Texas, and his family traveled to the Mother Lode thanks to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which has granted wishes to children with life-threatening diseases since 1980. Evan's wish was pretty simple: he wanted to go gold panning and see some explosives.   More
 

Police rule out terrorism in Zamboanga City, Philippines explosion
from Business Mirror
The police have ruled out terrorism in a bomb explosion in a coastal barangay in this city. The explosion, which took place at around 5:17 p.m. in Barangay San Jose Gusu, 3.2 kilometers west of this city's downtown, initially killed one and injured another. The death toll, however, increased to two as Alfahad Diminsil, who was earlier wounded, died while being treated at the Zamboanga Brent Hospital.   More