Engineering & Mining Journal

JUN 2016

Engineering and Mining Journal - Whether the market is copper, gold, nickel, iron ore, lead/zinc, PGM, diamonds or other commodities, E&MJ takes the lead in projecting trends, following development and reporting on the most efficient operating pr

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INDUSTRIAL MINERALS 54 E&MJ; • JUNE 2016 www.e-mj.com It's unlikely that motorists traveling along a certain stretch of interstate highway I-80 as it arcs across the southern half of Wyoming would guess there's a network of tunnels 1,600 ft below them that has more linear roadway than the city of San Francisco. And it's even more improbable that during the winter, when high winds, snow and frigid temperatures occasional- ly combine to close the freeway, strand- ed drivers would know that more than a quarter-mile beneath them, mining crews are hard at work in a comfortable 60° en- vironment, ripping through thick beds of a brownish, crystalline mineral that forms an important ingredient in many commer- cial products. The area where this peculiar conver- gence takes place is the Trona Patch, a 30- by 50-mile block of land in south- western Wyoming that contains massive Progress in the Patch Southwestern Wyoming hosts the largest known trona deposit in the world. Tata Group's North American chemical arm is intent upon making the most from its extensive holdings in what is commonly referred to as the Trona Patch. By Russell A. Carter, Managing Editor Tata Chemicals North America's Green River, Wyoming, plant, shown here, ships more than 2 million tons of soda ash per year processed from more than 4 million tons of trona produced by its underground mining operation. (All photos: Larry Brown)

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