MINING WORD

1. Adit: The opening of a mine tunnel. Sometimes this goes into a horizontal tunnel and

sometimes to a tunnel that slants downward.
2. Auger: A big drill that is like a gigantic screw. It bores holes in rock.
3. Beam: A straight piece of wood or metal that is used to hold up walls or roofs of a mine.
4. Bed: A layer of minerals, gemstones, ore, or rock.
5. Bituminous coal: It is a form of coal that is harder than peat but softer than anthracite.
6. Black damp: The gas mixture is a combination of carbon dioxide and nitrogen and forms in

mines. It is dangerous and can explode.
7. Borehole: A drilled hole that is deep and long.
8. Claim: In the old days, a person would choose a place to mine. He would register this land as

his claim and no one else was able to take it from him.
9. Claim jumping: When someone would take land that someone else registered as his own.
10. Coke: Something that is made by heating up coal.
11. Compacted: pressed together using a lot of pressure.
12. Continuous miner: A machine that digs the coal off of the walls of the mine AND then loads it

in a device to take it out of the mine.
13. Conveyor: a platform with sides that moves mined materials into a mine shuttle to take it

out of the mine.
14. Deposit: A rock, mineral, or gemstone that builds up in the Earth by itself.
15. Dragline: A machine with a long, lasso-like device on it that is pulled over the land in

mountaintop removal. It is pulled over an area and it clears out the trees and the

top levels of dirt called overburden.
16. Drought: When an area doesn't get rain for a very long time.
17. Erosion: The wearing away of layers of rock and minerals by wind, rain, and other weather

conditions.
18. Explosive: Dynamite is usually used to make an explosion that will break up rock so that the

miners can take it out better, or reach other minerals.
19. Fire damp: When gases sit in mines and become a danger for miners. They will ignite and

explode.
20. Flogging: This is a kind of punishment where someone is beaten with a whip or a stick.
21. Fluoresce/fluorescent: When light shines on something that is fluorescent, it makes it glow.

An example of this is when we went into the zinc mine. An ultraviolet

light was shined on the rock and then turned off. This made the rock

give off its own light--even after the ultraviolet one was turned off.

When something fluoresces, it means that it gives off its own light.
22. Geologist: a person who studies the earth--how it was formed and what it's made of.
23. Man-shaft: A tunnel that is used for the miners to go in and out of the mine.
24. Miner: A person who takes rocks, minerals, or gemstones out of the Earth.
25. Self-contained breathing apparatus: A device that is used to give oxygen to the miner if he

becomes trapped in a mine.
26. Self-rescuer: A smaller device that filters out gas and supplies oxygen to miners.
27. Shaft: A mine tunnel that is used to bring in air, miners, or equipment. It can also be used to

take out whatever is mined.
28. Shuttle car: A vehicle that is used to take ore out of the mine.
29. Sluice: Usually a wooden channel that water flows through. It has a lever to stop water from

going down. It is used in placer mining.
30. Tunnel: An underground passage that is used for miners, equipment, or machinery to get

from one area of the mine to another.
31. Valley fills: A place in the valley where the dirt, rocks, trees, and plants get dumped from

mountaintop mining.
32. Vein: A long layer of rocks or minerals.
33. Ventilation: The way that air is forced into a mine so that the miners always have good air to

breathe.
34. Vigilante justice: This is when people don't wait for law officers to take care of people who

break the law. Vigilantes decide what punishment the person will get and it

is often more cruel than what real law would give them.
35. Wedge: A triangular piece of wood or metal that is forced between a beam and the ceiling to

keep the beam tight and the roof stable