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Oil, Gas & Mining vocabulary · Mine Types & Mining Operations

Mine

Meaning in oil, gas & mining, with examples

/maɪn/nounCore term

In oil, gas & mining, mine means: A place where coal, metal ores or other minerals are dug out of the ground, either from a large surface pit or through tunnels underground.

In Turkish: maden, maden ocağı, ocak

How it is used

Also a verb: to mine copper, mined ore. People talk about a gold mine, coal mine, mine site, mine life (how many years it can operate) and mine plan. Miners work at the face; the mine manager runs the whole operation.

Example sentences

  1. The mine produces about 3 million tonnes of ore a year.

  2. Copper has been mined in this valley since ancient times.

Common collocations

  • coal mine
  • gold mine
  • mine site
  • mine life
  • mine plan
  • open-pit mineA mine where ore is dug from the surface in a large, stepped hole that gets wider and deeper over time, instead of through underground tunnels.
  • underground mineA mine where ore or coal is reached through shafts, declines or tunnels and extracted below the surface, used when the deposit is too deep for an open pit.
  • oreRock that contains enough of a valuable metal or mineral to be mined and processed at a profit, for example iron ore or copper ore.
  • shaftA vertical or steeply sloping tunnel sunk from the surface into an underground mine, used to move workers, ore, materials and air.
  • reclamationReturning land disturbed by mining or drilling to a safe, stable and useful condition, for example by reshaping waste dumps, spreading topsoil and planting vegetation.

More terms: Mine Types & Mining Operations

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