Welcome to MINEWALL 2.0! This program assists you in simulating open-pit mines or
underground workings, during operation and/or closure. The fundamental objective of
MINEWALL 2.0 is to provide you with a flexible tool for forecasting geochemical
conditions in a mine.
In addition to this User’s Manual, there are three other, related reports. The first is a
literature review and discussion of the conceptual models on which MINEWALL is
based. Because of all the previous work examined, MINEWALL offers you an
up-to-date, organized approach for predicting water chemistry in a mine, even if you do
not actually use the computer program. This underlying MINEWALL approach and its
conceptual models offer guidance on which physical, geochemical, and biological data
should be collected before, during, and after mining. In other words, the current value
of MINEWALL to a mining company might not lie in running the computer program
itself, but in designing a monitoring program to collect the data that would be needed to
run it.
A second related report is the application of MINEWALL 2.0 to three mines in British
Columbia. The Main Zone Pit at Equity Silver Mines was simulated with MINEWALL
1.0 and is re-simulated for comparison. BHP Canada’s Island Copper Mine will be
closing shortly and has completed a detailed closure plan. Noranda Minerals’ Bell Mine
has already closed and the pit is currently filling with water. MINEWALL has been used
for refining closure options at Island Copper and for estimating future water chemistry
in all three pits. This related report should be consulted if you wish to see detailed
applications of MINEWALL 2.0.
A third related report is the Programmer’s Notes and Source Code. This report
discusses some of the more technical aspects of MINEWALL’s programming and
contains a listing of MINEWALL’s roughly 24,000 lines of code.
Based on the aforementioned descriptions of MINEWALL’s literature review,
conceptual models, application, and size, it should be apparent that MINEWALL
requires a great deal of data to properly simulate a mine. In reality, you can simulate a
mine with very little data. For example, you can run MINEWALL at monthly, rather than
weekly frequency, using one water analysis of water and published rates of
geochemical reactions. The important point to remember is: if you enter data not
representative of your mine into MINEWALL, do not expect MINEWALL to magically
provide representative estimates. The old computer acronym is GIGO: Garbage In,
then Garbage Out. MINEWALL will use whatever numbers you give it: you must decide
if those numbers are appropriate.
A note about “bugs”, or problems in the code, is appropriate here. The number of bugs
in a program, and the frequency that they appear, depends on how often the program
is run. For example, some bugs might only appear on average once every tenth run;
others once every thousandth run. Some bugs may only appear when a user enters an
unexpected series of input data. In any case, MINEWALL will in theory never be free of
bugs, but we have eliminated the most frequently appearing ones. If you are
unfortunate enough to encounter a bug, please tell us about it and send any input data
you saved. The address and phone number are listed in Chapter 6. Please keep in
mind that MINEWALL 2.0 has been overdesigned for most existing PC’s (some
simulations can require over 50 Mb of extended memory!) and an apparent bug may
actually be a limitation in a particular PC. MINEWALL warns you of some potential
problems when you start it.
We can offer no warranty on MINEWALL code or its results, but we can ensure you we
are committed to providing a high-quality tool for the prediction of minewater chemistry.
We will have accomplished our primary objective if MINEWALL 2.0 guides you and
saves your time in obtaining a minewater prediction.
