Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2006. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xviii, 193 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 191-193).

Financial support given by the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration and the Council on Wage and Price Stability.

According to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), about 100 million rock anchors were installed in the USA mining industry during 1999 (Dolinar, 2000). The rock bolt usage in US coal mining industry fell from 85 million in the year 1988 to 68 million by 2005 (Tadolini, 2006), and is assumed to be close to that number of rock anchors consumed currently since, the tonnage from underground is almost the same. Most underground coal mines have conditions such as moisture in the atmosphere, ground water with different chemical contents that are conducive for corrosion of rock anchors and ancillaries (such as plates), and the effects of this on the performance of the anchors had been researched in the US to an extent from the past research at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC). In addition to the general corrosion like pitting and crevice, stress corrosion adds to the process a potentially serious threat and results in material failure underground due to stress corrosion cracking (SCC) yet the effects are not fully understood in the USA. The results of this research therefore will have a positive and direct effect on rock related safety. During this research project in situ specific tests were conducted with bolts to try and determine the corrosion potential in a specific coal-mining region. The coal mining areas were divided into three regions and were named as East, Mid-West and West respectively. To enhance the value/importance of the field data collected from the mines, a metal mine and a salt mine (two non-coal mines) were included in the plan and the data analysis proved that the methodology developed for determining the corrosion potential underground is applicable to any underground mines. The Insitu studies include water samples collection and analysis and open circuit potential (OCP/Eoc) testing and analysis. Open Circuit Potential (OCP) data were recorded to estimate probability of active corrosion. Hypothetically, probability of active corrosion is lower if the actual OCP of roof bolts in the mine is less than the characteristic OCP of the steel grade, and vice versa. The effects of certain factors such as the roof condition, reference distance (distance between bolt and reference electrode) on the open circuit potential data during the measurements were studied to ensure its impact on the corrosion potential determination technique developed. The findings from this research helps standardize the corrosion potential determination methodology. The preliminary study of stress corrosion cracking of the subject test sample (Grade 60 rebar roof bolt) was conducted in this research work. The experimental study invloves testing a complete roof bolt in the mine simulated environment. The mine simulated environment in the test cell consists of the roof strata material collected from the mine site with continuous flow of water at slower and varaible flow rate (0 to 3 ml/minute) with pH in the range of 7.5 to 9.0. The results showed that stress corrosion could be very serious problem when it comes to long term mining applications. The stress corrosion test cell developed and tested was proved to be significant in conducting the long term stress corrosion tests. The strength results of the Grade 60 rebar roof bolt tested had a significant strength loss after 3 months of testing in the stress corrosion cell. Hence, more SCC studies are deemed necessary to evaluate the seriousness of the problem and if possible eliminate it.

D.Phil. (Geology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.Phil. / The implementation of a maintenance strategy without taking the uniqueness of the specific business into account, will not necessarily result in a high level of performance. The maintenance function should be developed specifically to support the particular business processes and technology in use. There is presently a large gap between the results obtained through the implementation of the maintenance strategy at a major coal-mining complex and the desired targets to be met. To close the gap, this dissertation suggests that support systems should be implemented to sustain growth and stability. The dissertation specifically proposes the creation of a Central Support Function to support the maintenance strategy, which has been implemented together with the Enterprise Management System (EMS) with the System Application Product (SAP) as an enabler.

M.Comm. (Business Management) / Trade unionism and trade unions activities in South Africa’s labour relations system and workplaces has a long history of racial segregation characterised by confrontation and antagonism between the employer (management) and trade unions in the workplaces. However, in the South African contemporary labour relations environment the emphasis is more on creation of constructive and cooperative relations between the employer (management) and trade unions in the workplace. The literature study cites managers’ attitudes towards trade unions as one of the factor that could facilitate genuine interaction and promote productive cooperative management – trade unions relations in the workplace. The objective of this study was to assist in identifying and understating managers’ attitudes towards workplace trade unionism in the workplace utilising a coal mining company as a case study. For the purpose of investigating managers’ attitudes towards trade unionism and trade unions in the workplace, a literature review was conducted and the self-administered questionnaire was utilised as the research instrument to collect the primary data about managers’ attitudes towards trade unionism and trade unions in the workplace. The findings of the study reveal that most of the respondents generally harbour positive attitudes towards trade unionism and trade unions in the workplace. Another significant research finding of the study is the identification and existence of four factors underlying managers’ attitudes towards trade unionism and trade unions in the workplace. The factors identified relates to the awareness and understanding of the concept trade unionism and trade unions in the workplace, operational aspects in terms of perceived destructive and constructive role and function of trade unions in the workplace and lastly, management – trade union cooperation and relationship building in the workplace. Recommendations of the study were presented that will assist in improving and entrenching managers’ positive attitudes towards trade unionism and trade unions in the workplace.

The disposal of gypsiferous water, generated in coal mining operations, has become a problem in the Mpumalanga Highveld region in South Africa. As part of an investigation into the feasibility of using this water for irrigation, sand and water culture experiments were conducted in a glasshouse and growth chambers to determine growth responses of maize, sorghum, pearl millet, sunflower, soybean, cowpea, dry bean, wheat, rye, triticale, oats, barley, annual ryegrass, and lucerne cultivars to gypsiferous mine water in the germination, seedling and vegetative growth stages. Germination %’s were generally not affected. The seedling growth of maize, sorghum, pearl millet and lucerne was more sensitive and showed more significant cultivar differences than the seedling growth of soybean and the annual temperate crops. Seedling growth curves with increasing concentrations of Ca, Mg and SO4 followed a similar pattern for most of the crops: where CaSO4 was in solution, growth decreased in a linear manner, but above saturation concentrations with increasing gypsum crystal content, it increased despite decreasing osmotic potentials of the treatment solutions. The vegetative growth of sunflower, lucerne, dry bean and rye was more tolerant than seedling growth, but was more sensitive for maize and cowpea, and the same as seedling growth for sorghum, pearl millet, wheat, oats, triticale and annual ryegrass. It was concluded that the major property of this water that suppressed growth was the decreased osmotic potential. However, it is the ‘effective’ osmotic potential (i.e., the average osmotic potential during the whole growth period) and not that of the treatment solutions, that was mainly responsible for the eventual growth. The ‘effective osmotic potential’ is determined by evapotranspiration and the rapidity of gypsum precipitation, which in turn may be affected by the growth rate, temporal, environmental and soil factors. Sensitivity of crops and growth stages is therefore related to its sensitivity to the external osmotic potential, whereas tolerance both in the seedling and vegetative growth stages was found in crops primarily affected by the ionic effects of Na and/or Cl. Possible nutrient effects due to the high Ca and SO4 need further investigation. / Thesis (PhD (Plant Production and Soil Science))--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Plant Production and Soil Science / unrestricted

Scholarly and public analyses of state-community conflict in resource-rich communities, especially in Nigeria, often portray the compensational practices of the state and extractive enterprises as unjust and unsustainable. According to this view, at least three issues foreground the “unjustness”, namely: a) Inadequate compensation of land owners when land is expropriated or degraded in the process of natural resource exploration and production; b) inadequate periodic rents paid by extractive firms to land owners; and c) lack of, or inadequate socio-economic infrastructure in the host communities of extractive operations. Most analysts have therefore argued for a revamp of the compensation system and have presented the inadequacy of compensation as the underlying cause of conflict in Nigeria‟s mining communities (see Frynas, 2000b:208; Okoji, 2002:205). This thesis subjects the compensation discourse to a closer examination, especially against the backdrop of underdevelopment, pervasive poverty, environmental damage and continuing corporate-community conflict in Nigeria‟s resource-rich rural communities. The main argument is that, because of some of its underlying neoliberal assumptions, much of the compensation discourse is flawed – which is why the discourse obscures the true character of state-community and corporate-community conflict. This more so, because the discourse relies mainly on post-colonial (that is, post-1960) experiences and contemporary advocacy literature, ignores the interplay between history and contemporary developments in state-community relations, and treats compensation as an independent variable. Drawing on the concept of collective memory, and utilising historical, ethnographic and survey data from two of Nigeria‟s oldest petroleum and coal-mining communities, the thesis examines how the evolution of the Nigerian state and collective memory about aspects of that evolution have shaped state-community relations in the extractive sector. It situates state- iii community resource-related conflict within the wider socio-historical matrix of state and community contestations for ecological and natural resource sovereignty. The key finding of the thesis is that within the context of socio-ecological rights, compensation demands by local communities are textured. In the case of the communities selected for the study, such demands are often made outside, rather than within, local ethnographic ideas of “justness” and “fairness”. Hence, land-related grievances associated with natural resource extraction persist, regardless of whether or not local demands for compensation are “adequately” met by the state and extractive corporations. The thesis enriches and extends our understanding of natural resource conflict by privileging both the sociological and historical contexts of the conflict and raising questions about the dominance the state enjoys over local communities and indigenous ecological spaces.

The strata of the Peace River coalfield, in the Foothills of northeasten British Columbia, formed in a tectonically active region near the western margin of the craton. The complex pattern of intertonguing marine and non-marine strata which resulted was subsequently deformed by folding and thrusting, making interpretation and correlation extremely difficult. The present palynologic study was undertaken in an attempt to resolve some of the stratigraphic problems, where sedimentological and geophysical methods have failed. The primary aim of the study is to generate a composite palynologic section that can be used to zone, correlate and date the coal-bearing strata in the southern half of the coalfield. Eleven drill holes representing nearly 3000 meters of section from the Gething, Moosebar and Gates formations were sampled at 15 meter intervals. The 199 samples examined for palynomorphs yielded a total assemblage containing 232 pollen and spore species, 96 dinoflagellate and acritarch species and 22 algal cyst and fungal spore species. 256 of the 350 species are restricted in their occurrence within the section, and have been used to zone and correlate the strata. Open marine, restricted marine and non-marine horizons are identified on the basis of type and relative abundance of palynomorphs. Contact relationships are examined and clarified, the palynologic section is compared with lithologic information, and a geologic age is established for the rocks. The Gething Formation consists of a thin basal marine unit, overlain by a thick non-marine succession characterized by poor preservation of palynomorphs, and two clearly defined marine tongues which occur in the northern and upper half of the formation. The marine unit at the base of the unit defines the Gething-Cadomin contact. The marine tongues near the top of the formation are palyno-logically distinct from the overlying marine strata of the Moosebar Formation, and represent a unique transgressive phase. The lower half of the Moosebar Formation consists of marine shales, with an abundant and diverse assemblage of dinocysts and acritarchs, representing open marine conditions for most of this phase of deposition. The upper half of the formation consists of a palynologically barren, coarsening-upward sequence which is interpreted as a relatively high energy (non-marine) regressive phase. The Gates Formation consists of a complex pattern of intertonguing marine and non-marine strata. The lower half of the Gates is open marine in the region of Bullmoose Mt., and intertonguing marine and non-marine in the region from Wolverine River to Monkman Pass. In the southeast, the terrestrial strata occurs between two resticted marine zones which are continuous with the open marine strata to the northwest. The restricted marine unit which underlies the terrestrial strata, has been previously identified in whole or in part as the 'Torrens Member', and is considered here to be part of the Gates Formation on the basis of palynologic evidence. The basal marine/non-marine unit is overlain by a middle terrestrial and middle marine unit, and an upper terrestrial and upper marine unit. The entire Gething through Gates section is middle Albian to early late Albian in age, based on the first appearance of early angiosperm monocolpate and tricolpate grains. / Science, Faculty of / Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Department of / Graduate

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Dissertation (M Eng (Mining Engineering))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Mining Engineering / MEng / unrestricted