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The article discusses capacities and benefits of stripping with direct dumping within the mixed-type mining technologies for structurally complex deposits of solid minerals. The authors emphasize practicality of this technology in different geological and geotechnical conditions of mineral mining, and develop a procedure to determine a reasonable application range of the technology within the mixed-type mining systems. The resource-saving process flowsheets are proposed for dragline mining of centroclinal fold-type, water-encroached and steeply dipping bedded deposits. The most feasible ways of enhancing efficiency of overburden removal with direct dumping are discussed.

The geomechanical evaluation of safety is carried out for structural components of a mining system integrating caving and backfilling in extraction of ore reserves under bottom and in pitwall rock mass. It is found that safe distance between drilling and haulage openings in neighbor stopes depends directly on the height of a mining zone. The need of sequential cutting of drilling and haulage openings in the course of extraction of ore reserves from stopes is proved. The advance of heading operations over actual stoping should be not more than one–two mine openings depending on the rock mass quality. Stoping operations should eliminate formation of any pillars across the width commensurable with the stope or smaller. It is shown that operations in undermined or overmined zones are unsafe. The parameters of structural components which ensure safety of mining are determined.

The authors design and estimate a room-and-pillar method for mining inclined orebodies with combination of two approaches to ground control: through natural stability of rock mass and by means of overlying rock caving. It is shown that in rock mass under tectonic stresses, it is safe to extract ore reserves from rooms and from temporal ore pillar under protection of rock overhang. Due to inclination of an ore body, rocks in the pillar and in the block bottom fail mostly by way of shearing. The efficient ratios of a minimal width of a temporal ore pillar to a span of a stope are determined.

The article addresses peculiarities of solid mineral mining in difficult geological and hydrogeological conditions in eastern Russia. The known methods of preparing wet deposits for their further mining are reviewed. Special attention is given to mineral extraction from deposits in river channels, which is the most expensive process subjected to difficult-to-accomplish ecological requirements. The wet deposits are grouped with respect to possible drainage and opencast mining technologies. Some eco-oriented mining technologies are put forward, with efficient management of natural and manmade resources.

For this study, as part of the underground operations, the underground mining sequence was explored for suitability in the Zuuntsagaan mine. Two mining sequences are considered; bottom-up (B-U) and top-bottom (T-B), and the instability of stopes and open pit slopes is evaluated in response to each sequence. For the present rock mass conditions and stress state, with reference to the underground section, the results revealed that T-B sequence has lower ground movements. On the open pit section, the effect of the two sequences is relatively the same while the difference is mainly observed in the underground section.

The author proposes an R&D program for deep-level mineral mining in Siberia and Russian Far East. The article exposes the formulation and solution of the problems connected with the analysis of physical state of the subsoil, and describes the concept of engineering and modernization of mining machines, as well as development of resource-saving technologies for mining coal, metallic and barren minerals, including justification of process flow diagrams and robotization of operations involved in mineral mining, processing and conversion, and subsoil management.

The analysis of rock flow patterns under the cross-effect of contiguous faces uses the 3D discrete element method to reproduce ore drawing processes in underground mining at the Khibiny apatite–nepheline deposit. The study of ore drawing modes revealed the mechanisms of loss formation, as well as the rational designs of structural components of a mining systems and ore draw planograms. The numerical modeling results were verified during in-situ experimental blasting and sublevel stoping in different geological and geotechnical conditions in mines of the Kola Division of APATIT. A conception of sublevel stoping modeling is developed, and the guidelines are proposed for rating ore losses and dilution in underground apatite–nepheline ore mining.

Equipment of open pit placer mining is examined. The process designs of incremental end-to-end gold recovery from placer sands are substantiated. In structurally complex extraction blocks, stripping is carried out first, and then, the limits of rich sand pockets are adjusted during the second-phase denser-grid exploration. Different-grade sands are extracted selectively. Extraction and transport of standard-grade and low-grade sands, which are the bulk of an operating block, is implemented by heavy-duty bulldozes; the standard-grade sands are sent to sluicing, and the low-grade sands are used to make heap leaching piles. High-grade sands, which make a small volume of an operating block, are transported to a multi-stage processing facility for the high-efficiency gold recovery. Tailings of standard-grade and high-grade sand processing, with mainly fine and very fine gold content, go to heap leaching.

The authors describe the methodological approach to formation of geotechnical systems of deep open pit mines with regard to transient processes. Parameters and figures of subsystems of a geotechnical system, and their elements have a great number of interconnections and undergo changes within the space of life of an open pit. Their formation is considered as a set of stable functioning periods and transient processes. The terminological paradigm of structure, components and parameters of the geotechnical system of an open pit mine is described in the context of the open pit mine transport. The concept of adaptation of the technology and equipment subsystems during transient processes is presented as a mechanism of optimal functioning of the geotechnical system. The provision of their dynamic equilibrium is illustrated. Optimization of transportation as the most expensive process in open pit mining is based on integration of computer modeling techniques: geometrical, process simulation and economic mathematical. The key features of pitwall stability estimates in substantiation of the geotechnical system parameters are discussed. The approach to optimization of rock mass preparation by blasting on the basis of real-time adjustment of physical and mechanical parameters of rocks and rock mass data is described.

The process of rock arching in top coal caving with powered roof support systems is investigated. A direct proportional dependence between top coal flow duration and probability of static arching of rocks above an outlet hole, which prevents caving, is revealed. The new-developed method allows more accurate determination of the conditions and zones of rock arching in a model with one unit of powered roof support. When a number of powered roof support units operate in simultaneous top coal caving, the probability of arching may reduce greatly owing to the creation of a common zone of top coal flow.