Mining Engineering Systems: Legislation Of Mines In Australia

Task:You must earn an overall mark of 50% or higher to pass this Supplemental Assessment. Your score for this supplemental assessment can go up to a Pass.

You are working on an EIA for a brand-new uranium mine tenement that is close to Kakadu National Park. What laws must you follow, and could you give a concise summary of the laws' provisions? Your responses can be organised in a two-column table, with the legislation's name in column 1 and its description in column 2.

To learn more about the main types of mineralization found in Australia, fill out the table below. Give literary examples of these types of mines, along with their location (including state or area). Your responses must include information on the main ore types extracted from each of these mines as well as the sorts of rocks (geology) that hold the ore.

  1. Adani just received all necessary legal and administrative licences to begin its mining activities in Queensland's Galilee Basin. What were the main problems that this company needed to resolve in order to move forward? What legislation from the state and federal governments needed to be addressed?
  2. Give an example of a longwall mining technique where the panels are mined while retreating. To properly describe the various development types, use the appropriate vocabulary. What is the normal size of a panel? How much should the producing panel be kept in the dark about development? Why is this crucial? What engineering aspects of the longwall mining technique prevent it from producing as much as it could?
  3. Investigate the gold mining activities in Kalgoorlie. How much gold is generated by the Fimiston Super Pit per year? What kind of mining techniques did KCGM utilise to extract gold from the Fimiston Super Pit? Talk about the size of the fleet of haul trucks, the depth of the mine, and the main pieces of machinery employed. How long will the gold be produced in the pit, on average? What factors, while taking into account the Kalgoorlie region's history of gold mining, have influenced the decision between open-cut and underground mining techniques over time?

Answer

Introduction
This project report has been created to analyse the various mines in Australia and the legislations associated with them. A study of this report will help the reader understand the most prominent forms of mineralisation found in Australia, their topographical location, and the main ores quarried in such mines. While carrying on the process of mining for resources, it is not only essential to have possessed knowledge about the engineering systems, but also the legislations associated with them. The focus of this report lies in the combination of mining engineering systems and the statutory norms related to them. Moreover, the report aims to lay emphasis on the importance of regulatory standards by elucidating on a case developed in Queensland, Australia. Various intricate details and technical information regarding mining engineering and legislation have been presented in this study.

. Environmental impact assessment at Kakadu National Park
Mining activities are subject to regulatory norms which are essential to be noted before the mining process begins. This is because of the involvement of several authorities in the process and in meeting various other facets. Mining legislations regulate the environmental impact of the process and aim to put thresholds on the mining activities so as to reduce the impact on the assessment. The Kakadu National Park is a gigantic and biodiverse natural reserve in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is home to a large number of flora and fauna native to the area and is conserved by the government of Australia. Therefore, the mining of uranium in an area close to the Kakadu National Park would increase the risk of adding several adverse environmental impacts (Miller et al., 2015). Some of these adverse impacts include reducing the quality of surface water, ecological exposure pathways, and many others. This has been regulated by the ‘Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, 1999’, that provides a framework for conserving the Australian biodiversity and environment (environment.gov.au, 2019). This Act was enacted in July 2000, and replaced the ‘National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act, 1975.’