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Rouchleau Mine
The Rouchleau Mine is an abandoned open-pit mine within the Mesabi Iron Range at Virginia, Minnesota, United States. The mine, located on the east side of the city, is roughly long and wide; its deepest point is below its surface, making it one of the deepest mines in the range. Named for Louis Rouchleau, who explored the area for its mining potential, the mine was initially created as a shaft mine. It was converted to a pit mine by the 1930s due to improvements in open-pit mining technology and increasingly unstable terrain which made shaft mining unsafe. Ten companies have overseen mining operations at the Rouchleau Mine since it began operating in 1893. The majority owner has always been either present owner U.S. Steel or one of the firm's predecessors. The mine has produced 300 million gross tons of iron ore since it opened; it was last mined in 1977. Since its closure, the mine became part of Mineview in the Sky, a local tourist attraction. Mineview in the Sky featured a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open-pit Mining
Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mining differs from extractive methods that require tunnelling into the earth, such as long wall mining. Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially useful ore or rocks are found near the surface. It is applied to ore or rocks found at the surface because the overburden is relatively thin or the material of interest is structurally unsuitable for tunnelling (as would be the case for cinder, sand, and gravel). In contrast, minerals that have been found underground but are difficult to retrieve due to hard rock, can be reached using a form of underground mining. To create an open-pit mine, the miners must determine the information of the ore that is underground. This is done through drilling of probe holes in the ground, then plotting ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesabi Range
The Mesabi Iron Range is a mining district in northeastern Minnesota following an elongate trend containing large deposits of iron ore. It is the largest of four major iron ranges in the region collectively known as the Iron Range of Minnesota. First described in 1866, it is the chief iron ore mining district in the United States. The district is located largely in Itasca and Saint Louis counties. It has been extensively worked since 1892, and has seen a transition from high-grade direct shipping ores through gravity concentrates to the current industry exclusively producing iron ore ( taconite) pellets. Production has been dominantly controlled by vertically integrated steelmakers since 1901, and therefore is dictated largely by US ironmaking capacity and demand. Name The Mesabi Range was known to the local Ojibwe as ''Misaabe-wajiw'' ("Giant mountain"). Throughout the Mesabi Range, "Mesaba" and "Missabe" spelling variations are found along with places containing "Giant" in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virginia, Minnesota
Virginia is a city in St. Louis County, Minnesota, United States, on the Mesabi Iron Range. With an economy heavily reliant on large-scale iron ore mining, Virginia is considered the Mesabi Range's commercial center. The population was 8,423 at the 2020 census. Virginia is just south of the Superior National Forest and about south of the Canada–United States border at International Falls, Minnesota, and northwest of Duluth, Minnesota. Virginia is a part of the Duluth metropolitan area and U.S. Highway 53 runs through town. History Virginia was laid out in 1892, and named after Virginia, the native state of a large share of the lumbermen in the area at the time. A post office has been in operation at Virginia since 1893. Virginia was incorporated in February 1895. It was a logging community first, then developed as an iron mining community. The Virginia area mines were prosperous and setting new records consistently by the late 1890s. The main population boom began aft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minnesota
Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to intensive agriculture; deciduous forests in the southeast, now partially cleared, farmed, and settled; and the less populated North Woods, used for mining, forestry, and recreation. Roughly a third of the state is covered in forests, and it is known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" for having over 14,000 bodies of fresh water of at least ten acres. More than 60% of Minnesotans live in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, known as the "Twin Cities", the state's main political, economic, and cultural hub. With a population of about 3.7 million, the Twin Cities is the 16th largest metropolitan area in the U.S. Other minor metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas in the state include Duluth, Mankato, Moorhead, Rochester, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shaft Mine
Shaft mining or shaft sinking is the action of excavating a mine shaft from the top down, where there is initially no access to the bottom. Shallow shafts, typically sunk for civil engineering projects, differ greatly in execution method from deep shafts, typically sunk for mining projects. Shaft sinking is one of the most difficult of all mine development methods: restricted space, gravity, groundwater and specialized procedures make the task quite formidable. Shafts may be sunk by conventional drill and blast or mechanised means. Historically, mine shaft sinking has been among the most dangerous of all the mining occupations and the preserve of mining contractors called sinkers. Today shaft sinking contractors are concentrated in Canada, Germany, China and South Africa. The modern shaft sinking industry is gradually shifting further towards greater mechanisation. Recent innovations in the form of full-face shaft boring (akin to a vertical tunnel boring machine) have shown ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Taconite
United may refer to: Places * United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Arts and entertainment Films * ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film * ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two film Literature * ''United!'' (novel), a 1973 children's novel by Michael Hardcastle Music * United (band), Japanese thrash metal band formed in 1981 Albums * ''United'' (Commodores album), 1986 * ''United'' (Dream Evil album), 2006 * ''United'' (Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell album), 1967 * ''United'' (Marian Gold album), 1996 * ''United'' (Phoenix album), 2000 * ''United'' (Woody Shaw album), 1981 Songs * "United" (Judas Priest song), 1980 * "United" (Prince Ital Joe and Marky Mark song), 1994 * "United" (Robbie Williams song), 2000 * "United", a song by Danish duo Nik & Jay featuring Lisa Rowe Television * ''United'' (TV series), a 1990 BBC Two documentary series * ''United!'', a soap opera that aired on BBC One from 1965-19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minnesota Public Radio
Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), is a public radio network for the state of Minnesota. With its three services, News & Information, YourClassical MPR and The Current, MPR operates a 46-station regional radio network in the upper Midwest. MPR has won more than 875 journalism awards, including the Peabody Award, both the RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting award of the same name, and the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Gold Baton Award. As of September 2011, MPR was equal with WNYC for most listener support for a public radio network, and had the highest level of recurring monthly donors of any public radio network in the United States. MPR also produces and distributes national public radio programming via its subsidiary American Public Media, which is the second-largest producer of public radio programming in the United States, and largest producer and distributor of classical music programming. History Minnesota Public Radio began ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minnesota Department Of Transportation
The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT, ) oversees transportation by all modes including land, water, air, rail, walking and bicycling in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The cabinet-level agency is responsible for maintaining the state's trunk highway system (including state highways, U.S. Highways, and Interstate Highways), funding municipal airports and maintaining radio navigation aids, and other activities. History The agency's history can be traced to the state's Railroad and Warehouse Commission which emerged slowly from 1871 to 1905, and the State Highway Commission created in 1905. The Highway Commission was abolished in 1917 and replaced by a Department of Highways. The Minnesota Highway Department has been credited with numerous works listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. For air transport, the Minnesota Aeronautics Commission was created in 1933. Much of the railroad oversight was transferred to the Minnesota Department of Public Service ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Rukavina Memorial Bridge
The Thomas Rukavina Memorial Bridge carries U.S. 53 over the Rouchleau Mine pit connecting Virginia, Minnesota with other cities to the south. U.S. 53 continues through Virginia to International Falls and Canada; International Falls is about north of Virginia. The bridge, opened in 2017, was named after Tom Rukavina in 2021 following his death in 2019. Rukavina was a state legislator from the Iron Range At tall, it is the tallest bridge in Minnesota. This bridge carries a traffic volume of about 22,200 cars per day, making it one of the most-traveled highway segments on the Iron Range. The bridge also features a bike lane and pedestrian walkway that leads to trails connecting Gilbert and Virginia. The Mesabi Trail crosses the bridge. In 1960, the state of Minnesota and the mining companies in the area came to an agreement that allowed the construction of U.S. 53 across lands held by the mining company without the state paying anything for the land. The agreement stipulated tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taconite
Taconite () is a variety of iron formation, an iron-bearing (over 15% iron) sedimentary rock, in which the iron minerals are interlayered with quartz, chert, or carbonate. The name "taconyte" was coined by Horace Vaughn Winchell (1865–1923) – son of Newton Horace Winchell, the Minnesota State Geologist – during their pioneering investigations of the Precambrian Biwabik Iron Formation of northeastern Minnesota. He believed the sedimentary rock sequence hosting the iron-formation was correlative with the Taconic orogeny of New England, and referred to the unfamiliar and as-yet-unnamed iron-bearing rock as the 'taconic rock' or ''taconyte''. Following development of high grade direct shipping iron ore deposits on the Mesabi Range, containing up to 65% iron and as little as 1.25% silica, miners termed the unaltered iron-formation wall rock taconite. The iron content of taconite is generally 30% to 35%, and the silica content generally around 45%. Iron in 'taconite' is commonl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
