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Coal Bunker - A building where coal is stored.
Tipple - A device for overturning ore trucks, mine cars, etc, so that they discharge their load .
Inundation - A mine tunnel or shaft that has flooded and filled with water.
Airshaft - A vertical shaft in which air is blown down through the various sections of the underground mine. The air is generated by a large fan on the surface providing oxygen for the miners below.
Blackdamp - A deadly gas that is caused from coal burning in an atmosphere which lacks oxygen. Mostly a mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen found in mines after fires and explosions.
Shaft - a deep vertical passage used to enter the mine below. A shaft has to be "sunk" or dug out until the vein of coal is reached. When a coal vein or layer was found, then the digging began in a mainly horizontal direction to follow the vein.
Raise - Refers to a vertical or inclined excavation that leads from one level or drift to another.
Winze - An opening in an underground mine that is sunk downward, a winze is located underground in contrast to a shaft where the top of the excavation is located on the surface.
Slag Pile - a significant amount of dirt and rock excavated from the earth below that is dumped into a pile.
Vein (coal) - a layer of coal found in the earth. Approximately two to four feet in thickness. The deeper the vein, the older and better quality of coal.
Placer mining - is the mining of alluvial deposits for minerals. This may be done by open-pit (also called open-cast mining) or by various forms of tunneling into ancient riverbeds. Excavation may be accomplished using water pressure (hydraulic mining), surface excavating equipment or tunneling equipment.
Adit - are horizontal excavations into the side of a hill or mountain. They are used for horizontal or near-horizontal ore bodies where there is no need for a ramp or shaft.
Lode - A mineral deposit in solid rock
Mill - A plant in which ore is treated for the recovery of valuable metals. b) A machine consisting of a revolving drum, for the fine grinding of ores as a preparation for treatment.
Aassay - To test ores or minerals by chemical or other methods for the purpose of determining the amount of valuable metals contained.
Motherlode - The starting place or origin of a metal. A vein which contains the original metal "in place".
Ore - A mixture of minerals from which at least one of the metals can be extracted at a profit.
Tailings - Mine tailings are large piles of crushed rock that are left over after the metals of interest like lead, zinc, copper, silver, gold and others, have been extracted from the mineral rocks that contained them
Crosscut - A horizontal tunnel in a mine driven so that it intersects a vein of ore.
Drift - All horizontal or subhorizontal development openings made in mines.
Concentrator - A mill type structure using procedures, such as dry and wet crushing
and grinding of ore or other products containing minerals, to raise the concentration of the substance being mined.
Washery - A plant at a mine where water or other liquid is used to remove dirt from a mineral, esp coal.
Bump - As the coal is extracted, the pressure is redistributed onto the pillars and can increase to the extent that the pillar explodes like a hand grenade, shooting coal and rock at lethal speeds.
Puncheon (Plank) Road - is a dirt path or road covered with a series of planks , similar to wooden sidewalks.
Mining Terminology
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