Introduction:
Coal Mining 150 Years Ago

A Day in the Life of a Miner

• Morning
• Arrival
• Descent
• Bottom

As Fireboss

Jobs

Underground Stables

Introduction:
Open-Pit Mining Today

Mining

• Drilling and Blasting
• Removing the Waste Rock
• Loading Coal
• Processing Coal
  • Breaker
  • Coal-fired Dryer

Transporting Coal to the Market

Open-pit Mining Today¹:

Most modern coal mines in BC are open-pit mines. Open-pit mining has taken the place of underground mining in British Columbia because it costs less and is much safer. The rocky and mountainous land in BC has faulted coal seams. This means that the coal seams are twisted and bent, making underground mining very difficult.

"The Formation of Coal"

As we can see, the coal seam doesn’t follow a straight line, it is bent in many places. It would be difficult and dangerous to make underground tunnels that would follow the crooked seams. It would also take a mining company a lot of time and money just to build the tunnels to get to the coal. This makes underground mining very uneconomical.

The safety of employees is very important to mining companies. In open-pit mines, employees do not have to work in small dangerous areas where there could be harmful or explosive gases. There is also not the danger of cave-ins in open-pit mines.

Development:

Most open-pit and surface mines follow the same basic steps to get the coal out of the ground, clean and process it, and send it to the customers.

I would like to introduce you to my friend whose name is Casey. He’s a lump of coal that has traveled around the world:

Hello kids, I bet you’re wondering how the mines get all of that coal out of the ground and shipped overseas! If you follow along I will tell you the story of what happened to me. I used to spend all of my time sleeping deep under the ground in my bed of coal until one day something funny happened…

I was sleeping peacefully, when I heard a loud rumbling noise up above me. It was the bulldozers clearing the land. The first thing that coal mines do to get to the coal is clear and level the land. If there is any topsoil it has to be removed and is stored for later. The topsoil is re-used by the environment department in land reclamation processes.

Once the land is level, the miners make a bunch of horizontal cuts in the ground. These cuts are called benches. Benches look just like your steps or stairs at home except they are much bigger, close to 15 meters high. They are made to be the same height as the reach of the loading equipment.

"The bus shown here can help us understand the enormous height of the benches at the mine."

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