from drill hole data. Computers are also
             being used to develop plans for mine expansion, develop mining
             schedules for yearly, quarterly and in some cases, weekly
             operations. At the operating stage, this new technology is
             everywhere6. Both in research and operational applications,
             automated mine monitoring systems now determine immediate
             information on the status of equipment in underground or remote
             Canada produces its 60 mineral products from roughly 300 mines
             across the country7. Before these products can make the trip
             from mines to the marketplace, they must be searched for, staked,
             tested, analyzed, developed. There are many difference methods
             to mine for minerals, an "open pit" mine is one of the method we
             use today. The ore - waste material along with the minerals, is
             recovered directly from the surface. Drilling rigs are used to
             drill holes into the ore areas and blasting charges will be set
             in them to break loose the ore. The ore: first stop is at the
             primary crushing station, often located underground, where the
             large chunks of ore are crushed to a finer size. Further
             crushing is required prior to sending the ore to the mill where
             it is ground to a fine powder8. The purpose of crushing and
             grinding is to free the minerals from the rock. Treatment may
             consist of gravity or chemical concentration techniques.
             The end product of the mill is a concentrate, whereby the
             percentage of valuable mineral has been increased by a factor of
             10 to as much as 50 times contained in the ore9. The
             concentration operation may be complicated or relatively simple,
             depending on the mineral content of the ore. Milling processes
             are designed to separate the valuable minerals from the undesired
             minerals. Although the milling process separates valuable
             minerals from waste, it does not actually recover the metals in
             final form. The smelting operation treats the metal-bearing
             co...