Surface Mining Methods

Used when deposits are found near, or at the Earth's surface. These methods include placer mining, dredging, open-pit mining, and quarrying.

Placer Mining – A way of getting gold, tin, platinum, and other so called heavy materials from gravel and sand deposits when nearby water supplies are plentiful.

Dredging - In dredging, a pond or lake has to be formed so that a large barge-like machine called a dredge can be floated. A really long chain of buckets is attached to a boom at the front of the dredge. The buckets dip into the water when one end of the boom is lowered. The buckets fill with the ore at the bottom of the lake or pond. Then the bucket takes the ore back to the banks and dumps it for the other machines to load into the trucks.

Open-Pit Mining - First, the miners must remove the overburden that covers the deposit. Then they use explosives to break up the large deposit's of ore-body. The miners mine the deposit in many of layers called benches. Next, a road is built connecting all the benches, so the trucks can load and carry the ore out of the mine.

Strip Mining - It is a method of obtaining coal and minerals that lies close to the Earth's surface. In this method, miners cut a long, narrow trench in the ground and cast the overburden and spoil in two separate piles. Then they break the ore using machines or explosives and use machines to load the ore into trucks.