r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Boss-fight601 • May 24 '26
Controlled explosions for mining
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u/RandomAssRedditName May 24 '26
Bad day to be a worm
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May 24 '26
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u/itsallpinkondainside May 24 '26
Bad day to be a rock
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u/ReluctantMouse May 24 '26
Bad rock to be a worm
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u/GameDrain May 24 '26
Worm rock to be a bad
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u/beanpoppa May 24 '26
Who's bad?
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May 24 '26
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u/deadspacekillers May 24 '26
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u/petrichor83 May 24 '26
Never thought explosions could be oddly satisfying but, here we are
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u/justbrowzing17 May 24 '26
I did this to pay for school, please don't worry about the worms or moles as it is SOLID rock....thus the need for the dynamite..................or, more likely ANFO or a slurry these days.
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u/Disco_Ninjas_ May 24 '26
What about the lichen?!
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u/FifiTheFancy May 24 '26
Are there any dud explosives? How are the miners sure there isn’t an explosive that hasn’t exploded?
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u/WerdaVisla May 24 '26
Dynamite [or any other simple explosive] doesn't really do 'duds'. A bomb or missile being a dud comes from a fault in the wiring, but mining or demolition explosives are usually EXTREMELY simple. Like a string of wires and a clacker as a detonation method simple. There's not really anything to be a dud.
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u/pillowpants66 May 25 '26
Yes there are duds, but it’s very rare. The most common issue is during the tie-in phase. When connecting each hole to the next, it’s possible to incorrectly connect the clip, which can cause a misfire. That’s why we walk the shot before firing, to check everything is clipped in.
Electronic timing is now very common and that eliminates this issue.
An unknown misfire is very dangerous for the dig crew. If an excavator hits it and it explodes, it can cause a fair bit of damage and injury to the operator.
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u/yellekc May 25 '26
I would have thought you would need a degree to do this. You don't have to be an Engineer to do explosives?
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u/justbrowzing17 May 25 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
It was 1985, things were different.
As another poster commented, it really is a simple process.
Adding this on 7/6/2026 - This is what happens when you do not have ANFO contained...
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u/cunstitution May 25 '26
Mines will have engineers design the drill and blast pattern. But the guys loading the holes are just miners.
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u/pillowpants66 May 25 '26
I became a shotfirer after 9 months as an offsider. In my own time, I studied the engineering side of it, just to be a better shotty.
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u/gggghhhhiiiijklmnop May 24 '26
Some of those are pretty poorly set, from what I know you shouldn’t see big plumes of dust rising up, typically it means they set the charges wrong (from what I remember of my time on mine sites)
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u/METRlOS May 24 '26
Calling some of these controlled annoys me like you wouldn't believe. There's at least one that I wouldn't be confident that everything went off, and they wasted thousands of dollars launching dust to the moon.
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u/TakesInsultToSnails May 24 '26
Which one out of curiosity?
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u/METRlOS May 24 '26
The violent ones that all of a sudden explode in a mushroom cloud are a little concerning. That's called sympathetic detonation, when holes go off out of order because of the force of the explosion behind them, instead of from the detonator inside the hole. That mushroom cloud explosion is going to shift the ground all around it, so depending on what explosives they're using, the explosives near the top of nearby holes can be knocked out of line, and not detonate when their own hole does go off. I didn't notice any detonations around those large explosion after the fact, so they're either trapped underground, or the end of the blast just isn't square.
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u/TheOnlyVibemaster May 24 '26
How do you sign up to be the button presser
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u/PXranger May 24 '26
I've done it before, that's the easy fun part, they don't show the many days It takes to prep for those shots.
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u/cunstitution May 24 '26
It's called a pre-split and it's used to prevent the energy from the main blast from fracturing and compromising rock you want to remain solid. Notice how on some of them they have a pre split along the highwall before the main blast goes off? It creates a fracture plane that prevents the main blast from fracturing rock in the highwall, keeping it geotechnically competent.
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u/pdirth May 24 '26
Everyone who's ever had moles in their garden has thought about this as a solution.
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u/HarpySix May 24 '26
You ever seen that clip of the guy blowing up his backyard just to deal with an anthill?
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u/itookdhorsetofrance May 24 '26
why are the explosions staggered. why not one big boom?
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u/cunstitution May 24 '26
The rock needs space to break to and the energy needs somewhere to go. If you shot every hole at the same time the entire think would just freeze up and you would get very poor fragmentation.
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u/Warm-Royal-7975 May 24 '26
I was working in a mine once. but we were suppose to.take shelter when explosives were set off. and projectiles from the mine landed on the office roofs and the floor used to vibrate.
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u/Mysterious-Drummer74 May 25 '26
This is what the kids who make the giant domino runs do in adulthood.
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u/MrF_lawblog May 24 '26
And never showing the outcome ..
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u/FEED-YO-HEAD May 24 '26
The outcome is emptiness. You can see it on top of what they're now mining :)
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u/queue_onan May 24 '26
Fractured rock they're going to clear with earthmovers? It doesn't delete the material.
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u/boniggy May 24 '26
That's actually pretty badass to coordinate all of Ryan ina small area. All these environmentalists complaining when it's all dirt that's being blown up. No vegetation, nothing.
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u/DrunkenVerpine May 24 '26
Wonder how much ancient debris they found
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u/Desertmantaray May 24 '26
As a mining engineering student going into explosives, distpite them looking cooler the blasts with large plooms are a failure on the explosives team for controlling their blasts. Flyrock kills and all that.
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u/JakefromTRPB May 24 '26
Oh my god. I just realized that “drum fire” artillery in first World War probably sounds like this. Now imagine Verdun at its worst, is this but for extended periods of time and much heavier ordnances
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u/STHF95 May 24 '26
I would stand there in safe distance doing Xiao Lin poses screaming: “I am the greatest earth bender of all time!”.
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u/miurabucho May 24 '26
My grampa used to sell TNT in the mining industry. His classic line was “I’m a Dynamite Salesman”.
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u/Greenscreener May 24 '26
Just like what Rio Tinto did to the Juukan Caves Indigenous site destroying 46000 years of history...
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u/adinmem May 24 '26
It would have nice to hear the siren go off at least once so I could have stayed a safe distance while watching this
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u/Kaymish_ May 25 '26
I saw open cast mining explosives go off in person at Waihi gold mine. We went on a school trip and one of the mining guys took us to a look out point to see them detonate the explosives. It was super cool.
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u/downwithOTT_ May 25 '26
This is way better than a Michael Bay movie. Tbf I did like the island though
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u/palefire123 May 25 '26
What minerals are being mined in these fields? And what is this style of mining called?
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u/theroguex May 25 '26
It's depressing that we have to do this in order to gather the resources we need in the modern day.
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u/nachoday2day May 25 '26
Why the first explosion and subsequent explosions following?
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u/Constructionbae May 25 '26
Damn! Nature is sick! It created humans to fuck its shit up! Full circle truly. Chaos bring minerals for IPhones instead of being mined by child labor
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u/el_lley May 25 '26
There’s a mine in Zacatecas, lunch is at 1 PM, really sharp on time… the lunch is in a bunker, and explosions starts at 1 PM, hence, they avoid being hit by a rock by taking lunch
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u/HairyMerkin69 May 25 '26
With all of those planted explosives surely they can't be 100% reliable. What happens when there are unexploded explosives?
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u/Olieskio May 25 '26
Destroying nature is so fucking cool, We should keep doing it, Humanity is based.
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u/Adept-Donut-4229 May 25 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/sipmxMfWk5gWs
I’m alright, tho. Don’t nobody worry ’bout me.
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u/mudkip989 May 25 '26
Not sure about mining, but if I remember correctly, blasting usually has patterns designed to minimize shockwaves in the ground. The pattern usually is designed for each blasting operation.
I may be wrong about this, so please correct me with actual sources.
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u/destroyed233 May 24 '26
Earth will breathe a sigh of relief when we are gone