Underground mining has changed a lot over the years, since the 19th century when men started using shovels to tote canaries and make sure that the air underground was not toxic.
The modern mines feature extensive water-drainage and ventilation systems including high-tech communication networks with computerized machines in order to reduce the number of humans that are required underground.
Most mines normally have crucial components in common such as ventilation shafts and clear toxic fumes for blasting and drilling, access shafts to help lower equipment and workers and escape routes.
They also contain ore-transportation tunnels, communication systems that can send information back and forth from deep within the earth and recovery shafts that can carry excavated ore back to the surface.
However, no two mines are usually alike, and technological advances and application on the design and mining methods have greatly changed. These also rest on considerations such as:
- The composition of the rocks,
- The ore being mined
- The orientation of the ore deposit,
- Simple economics
- The geological features found underground, and
- The determination of hard or soft mining.
