Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Humanities of the University of the Witwatersrand Department of Sociology/ Global Labour University, in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of MA Labour and Development, Labour Policy &Globalization, 2015 / This study investigates the environmental costs of copper mining in a mining Township of Kankoyo in Mufulira, Zambia. It investigates the ways in which the mine workers in this community experience, assess and respond to the pervasive environmental degradation caused by mining operations. The study indicates that the people of Kankoyo have an implied understanding (physical experiences e.g. smoke, dust etc.) of the risks in their environment but lack explicit knowledge (long term effects). Second, the working class are now in an awkward position between participating in activism against the company that pollutes their environment and the need to keep their jobs. Third, experiences with a polluted environment have divided the Kankoyo between those who engage in community mobilisation (the unemployed) and those who don’t because they want to protect their jobs (the mine workers). As experiences take a gender dimension, women tend to suffer more due to the gender roles they play. Fourth, given their helplessness, the people of Kankoyo now plead for social services not in social justice terms but as a compensation for the pollution suffered. The core conclusion is that workers understand environmental threats but: (a) they have little awareness of the long-term effects and (b) they tend to minimise them. For these workers their economic security i.e. employment, is primary and they prioritise the immediate over the longer term, thus (c) they have not responded to this issue in an organised way, rather their unions tend to focus on traditional workplace/pay issues. In addition, state and environmental organisations’ responses are inadequate. Consequently, the community is forced to accept the negative environmental impacts on their lives and the environment. Therefore, the study makes the following arguments: (a) Mineral resource led development in Zambia has failed. Instead, it has led to devastating environmental and health impacts on the nearby communities; (b) that the provision of social services and housing to the mine workers, and revenue to the government only served to divert attention from the long term and ongoing environmental degradation that has taken place overtime. The slug dams, the accumulated dust heaps, leach plants and long term environmental degradation on the copperbelt attest to this; (c) that the corporate policy on housing only served the interests of the mining companies by stabilising the workforce without regard for the arising health impacts; and; (d) privatisation has increased the vulnerability of the working class to environmental costs of mining. In the end, from the shattered hopes of a good life ‘modernisation’ emerges in the words of one respondent a ‘development’ of ‘environmental suffering’, as Kankoyo remains a ‘bomb waiting to explode’. / XL2018

In-situ copper leaching at BHP Copper's San Manuel open pit mine was established in 1986. Currently, over a thousand wells on the benches of the open pit mine are simultaneously injecting and pumping sulfuric acid solutions. A large-scale reconfiguration of the well field in 1996 led to a dramatic, yet temporary, increase in copper pounds, apparently due to changes in flowpaths. While the first reconfiguration was accomplished by means of hydrologic intuition, a question arose regarding the issue of whether subsequent reconfigurations supplemented with additional smaller scale characterization could ultimately lead to increased copper production. To study this question, two fifty-well sites were selected within the in-situ leach well field. Because in-situ leaching involves the movement of fluid within the subsurface, hydrology is a natural context in which to study the process. The desire to optimize well-to-well in-situ leaching for enhanced copper recovery through the fundamental understanding of important hydrologic mechanisms is the primary motivation for this dissertation. Hydrologic testing in San Manuel is inherently challenging due to the hydraulically dynamic environment. A hydraulic cross-hole testing procedure termed "Cyclic Pulse Testing" (CPT) was used to overcome this issue. Over 100 pressure responses obtained via CPT at the two test sites were examined by means of type curve analysis. The spatially distributed hydraulic parameters were analyzed within the framework of geostatistics. The kriged heterogeneous hydraulic conductivity fields were inputted into a numerical flow and transport model to study, along with other issues, the impact heterogeneity has upon the in-situ leaching process. A number of conclusions were reached based upon the investigation of the two test sites. Comparison between single-hole and cross-hole hydraulic tests revealed the probable presence of a low permeable skin surrounding the wells. By far, the most important hydrologic mechanism controlling the in-situ leaching process in San Manuel was the massively induced hydraulic background gradient, in places, on the order of 35°. Modeling revealed insignificant differences on the sweeping efficiency of the formation between heterogeneous and homogeneous simulations. However, due to the twodimensional nature of the collected data, additional three-dimensional information may lead to a different conclusion.

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Thesis (M.Sc (Hons.))-- University of Western Sydney, Nepean, 1998. / Bibliography : leaves 105-106.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 93-97).

Orientadores: Ticiano José Saraiva dos Santos, Lena Virgínia Soares Monteiro / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Istituto de Geociências / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-21T19:19:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Matos_JoseHenriquedaSilvaNogueirade_M.pdf: 14049686 bytes, checksum: 25d55717e4c109fa4bd180699977bb8a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Resumo: A mina de cobre de Pedra Verde situa-se no município de Viçosa do Ceará, NW do Ceará. O depósito é hospedado por rochas supracrustais neoproterozóicas do Grupo Martinópole, Domínio Médio Coreaú. O embasamento é constituído por gnaisses-migmatíticos TTG paleoproterozóico (2,35 Ga). Quartzitos com intercalações de xistos, filitos, metassiltitos e meta-argilitos compõem a sequência supracrustal. ...Observação: O resumo, na íntegra, poderá ser visualizado no texto completo da tese digital / Abstract: The Pedra Verde Copper Mine, located at Viçosa do Ceará (CE), contains reserves of 44.932.644 t with 0.9 wt.% of Cu (418.726 tonn of Cu), with silver as by-product. The deposit is hosted by Neoproterozoic supracrustal rocks of the Martinopole Group, in the Médio Coreau Domain. Gneisses-migmatites TTG units compound the Paleoproterozoic basement (2.35 Ga) in the area. ...Note: The complete abstract is available with the full electronic document / Mestrado / Geologia e Recursos Naturais / Mestre em Geociências

The Lumwana copper orebody is situated 170 miles west of the Copperbelt. It is stratiform and occurs in schists regarded as part of the Katanga System older than the lower-most Copperbelt quartzite. The discovery of copper at the Lumwana Prospect was a text book example of the success of the R.S.T. Mines Services Limited prospecting techniques. These include partial geochemical analyses of soil and drainage samples, pitting, drilling and radiometric, self potential, magnetic, resistivity and induced polarization methods of geophysical exploration. The copper-bearing formations at the Lumwana Prospect occur in the inverted limb of a great recumbent fold within the Mombezhi Dome. Three periods of folding are recognized from the study of regional foliations and lineation, and the attitude of fold elements in individual folds. Each period of folding is regarded as a major pulse in the Lufilian Orogeny. The first-formed folds are isoclinal and have axial planes which strike at 160°, and dip southwest at 15°; the plunge is 11° in a direction 212° . The formation of first folds was accompanied by thrust faulting and the development of nappe structures including the great Lumwana recumbent fold. The second folds have axial planes which strike at 170° and dip west at 44°, the plunge is 12° in a direction of 192°, and the folds tend to be overturned. The third folds cut across the earlier folds at variable angles, they are overturned to the north and have axial planes which dip gently to the south. The formation of third folds was such that northward-acting stress was rotated from southeast to southwest, and relaxation of this stress resulted in the development in competent strata of joints which strike at 120° and dip steeply. At the Lumwana Prospect the northward-acting Lufilian stress is thought to have been resolved into eastward acting stress during first and second folding as a result of compression near the centre of the Lufilian Arc. The third folds are the normal Lufilian folds sub-parallel to the Lufilian Arc. Normal faulting and intrusion of gabbro along planes of these faults and the earlier thrust faults eccurred in a post-Lufilian tensional phase. In recent times warping of the formations at Lumwana has occurred on east-west axes. Statistical examination of chemical data on fifty-four composite samples of mineralized rock from drill-holes reveals that the distribution of copper, iron and sulphur is related to that of potash and soda. These relationships can be explained on sedimentological grounds since the examination of the distribution of soda and potash in these and other horizons yields no evidence of metasomatism in the mineralized horizon. Intrusive into the mineralized schists, though not found in the ore, are thin amphibolites and a large serpentinite which contains relict olivine and bronzite. This is the first recorded occurrence of ultrabasic rocks in the Lower Roan Group of the Katanga System in this part of Zambia. Study of all formations at the Lumwana Prospect reveals that they have been metamorphosed in the epidote-amphibolite facies of regional metamorphism. Mineral assemblages indicative of the amphibolite facies are found in sheared rocks, and metamorphism in competent parts of the Upper Roan-Mwashia has been confined to the greenschist facies. Temperatures of metamorphism are estimated to have been between 250° and 280°C, and pressures are likely to have exceeded 6 kilobars. Evidence of metasomatism, absent in the Lower Roan, is found in the examination of the Upper Roan-Mwashia formations. Metasomatism includes scapolitization and albitization and is related to the intrusion of gabbro into these sediments, but does not necessarily involve exogenous material. The sulphide minerals identified are bornite, chalcocite, digenite, covellite, chalcopyrite, cubanite, valleriite, carrollite, pyrite and pyrrhotite. Intergrowths of these minerals have resulted from metamorphism at temperatures slightly in excess of 235°C. The copper sulphides are distributed zonally in the orebody with chalcocite- bornite ore where the mineralized schist is thin, and chalcopyrite- cubanite-pyrite ore where it is thick. Vertically the body contains horizons with sulphides relatively rich in copper at the top and bottom, and an intermediate zone with sulphides leaner in copper. This zonal distribution is considered to be evidence for syngenetic deposition of copper during successive cycles of transgression and regression. Ore genesis at Lumwana is closely related to genesis of the Copperbelt and Katanga orebodies. The Zambia-Katanga province is considered to have been enriched in copper epigenetically prior to the formation of the present-day orebodies. Reworking of these cupriferous rocks and some early-formed syngenetic deposits of which Lumwana is one, is considered to have played a major role in producing the present-day copper orebodies.

This thesis seeks to explore trends and developments in the direction of new capital investment decisions by the Japanese copper industry, in order to determine what factors may influence the nature and extent of participations by Japanese interests in overseas copper mining, exploration, and development ventures. Japan is becoming an increasingly important factor in the world copper market, and it is argued that the policies which the Japanese adopt in securing their raw material resources will have an important bearing on the world copper industry. It is assumed that Japanese interest in securing raw material resources for her copper industry can be expressed as a dynamic model which is dependent upon Japanese expectations of future market supply and demand conditions for copper both at home and abroad. For purposes of analysis a theoretical model is constructed to explain the nature and extent of Japanese overseas participations in copper. The model is based on an analysis of the financial risks involved in copper mining, exploration and development, and on an analysis of trends taking place in the world copper industry today. Selected case examples are used to illustrate the hypotheses of the model. The price at which Japan buys and sells her copper is fixed in the world market by supply and demand conditions largely beyond her control. It is argued that a reorganization of existing marketing structures is probable and that this is likely to lead to more stable prices within the industry. It also appears probable that the U.S. producer price and the LME price will converge as the LME increasingly comes to reflect all rather than marginal market forces. In future, prices within the industry will come to increasingly reflect the long run average cost of production for mine output, plus a reasonable margin for profit. In order to maintain control over the form and delivery of her copper needs, and to increase the profitability of her metal mining firms it is argued that Japan must find and develop mines at a production cost below the long run world market price of copper. To accomplish this goal, Japan must spread her exploration efforts abroad and invest wherever she finds worthwhile development prospects in a conducive economic and political environment. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate