Student journal - A mining engineering student's take on vacation work - Curtin University/Newcrest Mining Limited
This year I was fortunate to experience my first open pit placement, out at Telfer with Newcrest Mining Limited, having only experienced underground operations in the past.
This exposure widened my perspective on mining operations, and allowed me to absorb a tremendous amount of knowledge from the talented team that surrounded me over my vacation period.
This experience allowed me to learn the foundation of drilling, blasting, quality control, geological, geotechnical, surveying and operational roles that exist in large, open pit operations. I was able to design and implement my own blasts, in several different areas of the Telfer site, which is currently undergoing a new cutback, progressing through dramatically softer material than the older, deeper pits in the mine. This allowed me to test my learned knowledge by applying the same principles to different materials, adapting designs and expectations to new parameters.
That being said, I definitely had the most fun working with Bomb crew, getting my hands dirty, and seeing how the engineering parameters we designed in the office translated to movement on the ground. This proved to be the most exciting part of my experience, and I even had the pleasure of ‘stomping’ the blast I had ‘loaded’, ‘stemmed’ and ‘tied-in’ that morning. This was immensely enjoyable and allowed me to explore what the operators want from the engineers, rather than just what the engineers want from the operators.
I had the pleasure of meeting many talented and knowledgeable people on my journey, the most exciting to work with was Leonard 'Lenny' Rowe, the Open Pit Production Superintendent and Quarry Manager, who shared a mountain of knowledge to me from both an operational and financial perspective. Naturally, I tried to absorb as much as I could from Lenny, since his knowledge aligns with my chosen double degree of Mining Engineering and Finance.
Overall, the experience was fantastic experience, and I am very grateful to have learned as much as I did about open pit mining.