Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Mining Engineering
Forward-testing mineral prospectivity models with discovery dates: Quebec graphite and nickel
Published: 2026-10-27
Subjects: Geology, Mining Engineering
Mineral prospectivity models are usually evaluated with spatial cross-validation, but known occurrences cluster around past exploration, so this may measure performance within the explored footprint rather than the ability to rank later discoveries. We trained seven prospectivity models on graphite and nickel occurrences known in Quebec, Canada, before 2000 and tested how they ranked cells with [...]
Data-efficient prediction of rare earth leaching from industrial residues with physics-constrained machine learning
Published: 2026-10-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering, Geochemistry, Mining Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Coal ash, mine-water sludge, red mud and phosphogypsum contain rare earth elements, and each new feedstock needs its own leaching recipe. LixaLearn couples a small neural network to closed-form rate laws for four metal hosts (exchange sites, fast-dissolving minerals, slow-dissolving minerals and a locked fraction), with part of the fast host limited by the solubility of its mineral. The network [...]
Lixa v0.1.2: an open-source, image-informed framework for closed-loop design of leaching processes for domestic critical-mineral recovery, from the pore to the plant scale
Published: 2026-10-14
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering, Geochemistry, Hydrology, Mining Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Leaching takes a metal out of a rock and into a solution. In the United States, rare earth elements, lithium and scandium occur mostly in rocks where the metal is thinly spread through a porous matrix: weathered clays, coal ash, lithium claystones and bauxite residue. For such rocks the leaching recipe (reagent, concentration, temperature, particle size, liquid-to-solid ratio and contact time) [...]
CRS Methodology to the Realmonte Salt mine, southwestern Sicily: an application for hydrogen storage potential site in Italy.
Published: 2026-08-22
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Geology, Mining Engineering, Multivariate Analysis, Risk Analysis, Sustainability
As Sicily expands its renewable energy portfolio, the need for large-scale energy storage becomes increasingly urgent to ensure supply-demand balance. Hydrogen storage in salt caverns represents a promising solution in this context. This study presents the first real-world application of the Common Risk Segment (CRS) methodology, originally developed for oil and gas exploration and recently [...]
Mineral stability and porosity dynamics in Halite- and Kainite-bearing rocks after hydrogen batch reaction test: a case study of Realmonte mine, Sicily (Italy)
Published: 2026-08-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Mineral Physics, Mining Engineering, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Risk Analysis, Stratigraphy, Sustainability
Underground hydrogen storage in salt caverns is among the most mature geological storage options, yet the behaviour of potash-salt lithologies under hydrogen exposure remains entirely uncharacterised. This study presents a multi-technique characterisation, performed on selected representative samples, of Messinian halite and kainite-bearing evaporites from the Realmonte mine (Sicily) subjected to [...]
A heuristic approach to structural consistency of a horizon surface with tectonic faults based on Mallet's discrete model
Published: 2026-08-20
Subjects: Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Mining Engineering, Theory and Algorithms
The paper addresses the problem of automating the consistency process between reflecting horizon surfaces and the network of tectonic faults in the construction of three-dimensional digital geological models within the explicit (surface-based) approach. The problem is formalized on the basis of Mallet's discrete model (Discrete Smooth Interpolation, DSI). It is shown that the classical [...]
Three-Dimensional Modeling of the Underground Mineral Extraction Process: A Dynamic Three-Dimensional Model of Underground Mining Space
Published: 2026-08-04
Subjects: Geotechnical Engineering, Mining Engineering, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Other Environmental Sciences
Three-dimensional models of underground space are a core component of digital twins of mining enterprises. The fundamental requirement for such models is that they must be dynamic — accurately reflecting the current state of their physical counterpart at each moment in time. When developing large underground bedded mineral deposits (coal, potash), the mined horizon constitutes a continuously [...]
An experimental study on element migration and pore evolution during supercritical carbon dioxide geological sequestration in deep coal seams of the Ningxia region, China
Published: 2026-08-01
Subjects: Mining Engineering
With the intensification of global climate change, reducing greenhouse gas emissions has become a global challenge. As a high-emission region, Ningxia faces significant pressure to reduce emissions. Geological storage of carbon dioxide is considered one of the key technologies for achieving carbon neutrality. Utilizing deep unmineable coal seams for CO2 sequestration can not only reduce [...]
Parametric Analysis Applied to the Geometric Optimization of Filtered Iron Ore Tailings Stacks
Published: 2026-07-09
Subjects: Engineering, Mining Engineering
The high iron ore output in Brazil and the regulatory restrictions imposed on tailings dams after the Mariana (2015) and Brumadinho (2019) failures have accelerated the adoption of dry stacking of dewatered tailings. This work develops a parametric analysis for the geometric optimization of filtered iron ore tailings stacks, assessing the influence of slope angle, berm width and bench height on [...]
HIGH-RESOLUTION DIGITAL TERRAIN MODEL FOR THE ITALIAN TERRITORY
Published: 2026-03-12
Subjects: Agriculture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Engineering Education, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geography, Life Sciences, Mining Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Risk Analysis, Social and Behavioral Sciences
High-resolution digital terrain models are essential for environmental planning and territorial analyses, and provide foundations for geomorphological and hydrological applications, including flood and landslide modelling and geo-hydrological hazard and risk assessments. In Italy, airborne LiDAR surveys have improved the representation of terrain morphology in the last decade, but their coverage [...]
Can We Evaluate the Effectiveness of Diverting Agent Only by Hydraulic Fracturing Pressure Signals
Published: 2026-02-05
Subjects: Mining Engineering
Conventional industry practice evaluates the effectiveness of diverting agents in hydraulic fracturing of oil and gas wells by monitoring treatment pressure, predicated on the assumption that a pressure increase signifies the successful plugging of dominant fractures and subsequent fluid diversion. This study critically examines the reliability of using pressure response as a sole diagnostic [...]
Spontaneous liquefaction in saturated granular deposits: State controlled boundary and surface reconfiguration
Published: 2026-01-26
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Engineering Science and Materials, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geotechnical Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Mechanics of Materials, Mining Engineering, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Risk Analysis
In the case of water-saturated, granular deposits that are at risk of liquefaction, engineers need reliable information about the spatial extent of soil deformation in the event of liquefaction. It is not so important for them to know the exact location of the first failure. However, existing anal-yses primarily deal with the triggering of liquefaction and offer only limited information on how [...]
Liquefaction as an energetic instability of saturated granular systems – Density control and static enthalpy equilibrium
Published: 2025-12-27
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Geophysics and Seismology, Geotechnical Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Materials Science and Engineering, Mining Engineering, Other Materials Science and Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
Liquefaction of saturated granular materials is commonly interpreted within stress-based frameworks that rely on the existence of an intact grain skeleton. At the onset of liquefaction, however, the contact network collapses and effective stress ceases to be a meaningful state variable. This work reformulates liquefaction as an enthalpy-driven instability of the coupled grain–water system and [...]
Sequential Efficacy of Information for Optimized Geophysical and Drilling Strategies in Mineral Exploration
Published: 2025-12-05
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Geophysics and Seismology, Mining Engineering
The global energy transition has created an urgent need for expanded critical mineral supply. Projected production from existing deposits and current discovery rates remains insufficient to meet this demand. More efficient exploration strategies are therefore required, particularly in optimizing costly and low-success data acquisition campaigns. To address this challenge, we introduce the concept [...]
Seismicity Migration from Fluid Injection: Laboratory Experiments and Numerical Models Illuminate Volume-Driven versus Pressure-Diffusion-Driven Migration
Published: 2025-10-09
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology, Geotechnical Engineering, Mining Engineering
Fluid injection into the subsurface can induce seismicity by reactivating shear rupture, which typically produces larger earthquake magnitudes than tensile rupture. In laboratory shear rupture experiments, pressurization of the entire fault is often limited because large unconfined samples allow fluid to leak at free surfaces. In this study, we investigated shear fault reactivation by directly [...]