The International Mining Technology Hall of Fame will recognise pioneers in the mining industry across a range of categories and is already receiving widespread nominations. The award will take place at a Gala Dinner at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Saturday, February 22, 2014; just before the SME Annual Meeting starts. Nominations for the Safety award sponsored by Redpath Mining have been made for Andy O’Brien and Andy Cecala for their innovations including the dust booth and the helmet cam. Whilst Byron Knelson has been put forward for the concentration award for his developments to the field of gravity separation and the development of what is now known as the Knelson Concentrator. For the exploration inductee, Edmund Joseph Longyear has been nominated. Longyear and the company he founded (EJ Longyear, now Boart Longyear, shown here) was highly influential in early contract diamond drilling as well as geological services and shaft sinking in the early part of the 20th century. The development of the wireline-retrieved ‘Q’ core-barrel revolutionised the exploration business in the 1960s and is still the standard use in the business today.
Graeme Jameson has been nominated for his pioneering and innovative flotation research and his invention of the Jameson Cell which is now installed in over 320 operations worldwide. TC Rao from India has been nominated for the comminution award for his input in developing models for designing hydrocyclones in closed circuit with ball mills. The equations he developed are still in use today.
Daniel Bongers, the inventor of SmartCap has been nominated for the technology award and Tony Barringer has been nominated for his development of the new airborne electromagnetic system called the Induced Pulse Transient electromagnetic system (INPUT) which has been used to discover more than 25 orebodies collectively worth over $100 billion. Barringer has continued to develop new models that have also been successful in industry. Another nomination highlighted Bull Schultz conversion of the Marietta Miners from cutting coal to potash, increasing productivities by almost an order of magnitude.
Over the next couple of months we will be accepting further nominations from readers, sponsors and suppliers across the industry worldwide, followed by voting by our college of experts – mine, process plant, engineering company and consultancy management, as well as leading mining professors around the world.
Once the nominations are in, the voting will be undertaken by a college of some 200 experts and leaders in the fields of exploration, mining and processing. To ensure impartiality, none of them will be employees of supplier companies (but of course their nominations are very welcome, and in some cases, nominated people may have worked at several different groups).
Please send your nomination here, with your reasons (maximum 500 words) why this person (or team if applicable) should be in the Hall of Fame – what did the technology/idea achieve? And please convince us that this person (or team if applicable) is the one that should be honoured for this specific technology or technique. Nominations will close at the end of September 2013; the selection college will then vote before the end of October.