Shrinkage Stoping at the Crean Hill Mine
(Technical Report)
K.J Henderson
Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration
I. INTRODUCTION AND ORE BODY DESCRIPTION
Shrinkage stoping is an adaptable mining
method that is currently employed in narrow
irregular ore zones with self-supporting walls
therefore strong shearing, cross faulting or dikes
are avoided, Shrinkage stoping is capable of
producing ore in a relatively short period of
time with little capital development. The
disadvantage is that not all the broken ore can
be pulled out from the stope immediately. The
Crean Hill mine had more than one mining
method, having a combination of both
underground and open pit methods dependent
on the depth of the ore, Crean Hill Mine was
discovered by Francis Charles Crean in 1885
and it was within 1905 when Canadian Copper
Company started developing the Project, they
completed a total of 5 surface diamond drillings
and some land stripping to uncover the body.
The ore is located near the mutual contact of
the Sudbury Nickel Irruptive, the Creighton
granite and the older Middle Precambrian mafic
metavoltics of the Elsie Mountain formation,
the ore is found at the nickel irruptive contact
where it swings sharply northward. The norite
contact dips about 80˚ North to West of the
Baccay, K.C. (2019)
mine and about 50˚ northwest to the northeast
of the mine, it is sheared and brecciated and the
ore is found in between the brecciated
greenstone and the norite, the ore is rocky
containing abundant rock and mineral
inclusions, its hanging wall consist of late
Middle Precambrian norite and Quartz diorite
type norite which is high in stability and Early
precambian mafic and granite gneisses as foot
wall. For shrinkage operation the dip of the ore
should not be less than 1.04 rad since angles
that are flatter than this will not pull properly
since the method is dependent on gravity, since
the ore and the rock supporting the mine meets
the requirements shrinkage stoping was chosen
since the advantages outweigh the
disadvantages, this method was used for the
first eight levels of the mine which makes up
the 17% of the production however as time
passed by it decreased due to the advent of
advances blasthole techniques notably in-the-
hole drilling.
II. MINE DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT
Two major types are used in which are
classified on the basis of type of draw system
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 employed. These are the utilization of load- the stope with height of 3 m, lastly is the sill
haul-dump (LHD) equipment drawing from operation.
drawpoints, and the slusher and train method
drawing from boxholes into slusher trench and
loading into a train. A third method being
phased out is drawing from the chutes directly
into a train.

The haulage drift for a draw system using

LHD equipment is driven parallel to the ore
body in foot wall at a sufficient distance to
allow 11.5 m drawpoint to be driven into the
ore, Drift sizes of 4.6 x 4.1 m for St-4 and 3.8 x
3.6 for an St-2 which meet clearance standards
and at the same time allow sufficient space to
accommodate a ventilation pipe. The
drawpoints sizes are smaller, 3.9 x 2.9 m for an III. MINE OPERATIONS
ST-4 and 3.8 x 2.9 m for ST-2 since they do not
have to carry ventilation pipes, a crosscut is
Operation in Crean Hill Mine can best be
driven off the haulage drift as soon as possible
defined as horizontal breasting method utilizing
into the rib pillar to serve as access for stope
the broken ore for the mining floor and to
raise, the haulage drift is then continued driving
provide wall support with draw from series of
the first drawpoint with the drift, this drawpoint
boxholes or drawpoints at the base of the
is driven on edge of the pillar since it connects
stoping block.
the chute side of the stope raise to facilitate the
raise mucking and serve as a starting point for
the stope sill. Then will proceed with the silling
operations which are done by the crew that
drove the drift, the sill breaks into each boxhole
as it is reached and when the silling procedure
is done then the stoping operation begins.

The development of the Crean Hill Mine

Drilling and blasting are the main means of
operation consists of 5 steps first a haulage or a
production in Shrinkage stoping and it is performed
transport drift was driven along the bottom of
as overhand operation, the rough surface in the stope
the planned stope this was done using LHD and
prevents use of mechanized equipment therefore the
the path is parallel to the dip of the ore, next
use of jacklegs and stopers in drilling using
crosscuts are made from the haulage drift that
hozirontal breasting method. Stoping crews drilling
was made in the previous step, next drawpoint
and primary blasting are producing 42.1 t per man
drifts are developed downward the crosscuts to
shift and individual stopes produced as much as 96.2

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per manshift over extended periods of time and this
includes slushing, tramming and secondary blasting

IV. CURRENT STATE OF THE MINE

The Crean Hill Mine Site operated intermittently
from 1905 until 2002, it was commonly known as a
steady producer with a total of 18.3 million of tons
nickel copper ore was extracted from the site
however the decision that led for it to shut down was
mainly due to the ore resources being extremely low
in profit.

All the waste rock generated from the mine was

either re-used as fill underground or placed into the
open pits since the site also became an open pit
particularly Ellen Open Pit after the underground
operation. All of the mine openings have since been
capped and two of the three pits have been
permanently decommissioned. Care and
maintenance of the site is ongoing under the Vale
company.

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