The tour started out with a safety video to teach the students how to be safe in the mine and what hazards could be encountered during the visit. After completing the video the students started the tour in the crusher. At the crusher building, a spare mantle was having maintenance work performed on it which allowed the group to see the size of the crusher mantle. Next the group walked up to the crusher control room and watched while haul trucks brought in material for the crusher to grind. To see the how the crushing system worked and the size of the system, the group descended six stories below the ground. At each level we were informed about what was happening to the material and what each component was on the system.
After understanding the crusher, the group headed out to the mine pit to see the equipment at work moving the material. Hibbing Taconite uses 240 ton haul trucks to move the material from the current location in the mine to the crusher. The group watched how the haul trucks are loaded and also a drill that was laying out the pattern for the mine’s next blast. On the way back to the concentrator, the group stopped at a parked haul truck to get an idea of how large a haul truck is and how high off the ground the operator sits.
To continue with the tour, the group was shown where the material goes after the crusher. Inside of the concentrator we saw the mine material being fed into the large autogenous mills where it impacts itself to be crushed into a smaller size. Then the group was shown the process of how the material is separated, dried, and rolled into green balls. After that the last step was to see the indurating furnace where the green balls were fired into taconite pellets.
The SME members found it very interesting to see the entire mining process up close and to be able to ask questions to the two employees at Hibbing Taconite who gave the tour.
Mike Carlson
Proofread by Michael Lynch
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