Team Appreciation Thursday.

Selebi(2 shaft) Geology Team.
From left to right: Collen Samuel, Banabotlhe Dikgang, Ndamapo Siku, Kebaagetse Gothaang, Mosimanegape Rekopanye, Mompoloki Gaborone and Kegaisitse Dikosha.

Collen Samuel ( Staff Geologist/Acting Superintendent).

Responsible for 950 meter level to 1.15km below surface. Mining activities in these levels included conventional stoping(masaete) of steep raises, infrastructure development ( haulages, MVR, 26 degree decline, ore tips, ore boxes, refuge bays and dams). One of the primary

And critical objective was to control grade and manage dilution from either conventional stopes or by cross tramming (tipping waste into ore). Other critical mandates of the Geologist was to advice on the geotechnical set up of a mining area, be it ore end or waste..

So it was critical that mapping is done promptly to include hazardous structures which could result in unstable ground conditions (tafole e ole).
Another critical but often neglected by mining captains was cover drilling, as outlined in the Mines, Quarries, Men and machinery Act

Regulation 86 states what needs to be done to avert mine flooding.

An intense drilling program was carried out to increase the confidence of the resource from inferred, so for levela like 1100 to 1150ml the only available information was from surface holes

So it was one hell of a job of direct sill drives into these virgin levels.
Transportation by the GMT ended at 900ml so I had to walk down the MVR to reach these levels, imaginer kgathakgoba, gumboots, lampi le mogote ne o kgona go fufula all the way to the potatoes .

Banabotlhe Dikgang(Staff Geologist) was also responsible for a few conventional stopes in 900ml with some drilling either for grade control/resource evaluation. You ne ele Miner tota, he had blasting license and underground drivers license.

Ndamapo Siku(Graduate Trainee): he started off mining pillars but was later given an interesting project to increase the LOM by mining the LOB(Lower Orebody). What had happened is that at some level the Orebody split during deposition and we had two Orebodies separate by

Quartzo feldspathic Gneiss middling. These Orebodies were termed Upper and Lower Orebody depending on which side is the footwall/hanging wall. So since mining had been going on before we got there we decided to re evaluate the LOB to determine whether it would be economic to

Extract, which came out successful and it bought us a few years of mining. Mine o tswala jaana his promotion papers dile on the table.

Kebaagetse Gothaang(Staff Geologist): joined production from exploration and was responsible for another interesting project, the SLOS which stands for Sub Level Open Stoping aka Poo(as in kgomo) banna baba bodipa bane ba isiwa gone ha because ne go hisa blind.

The SLOS was a pilot project to move away from the conventional mining which was labour intensive to a bulk mining method (mechanized) where you blast and retreat( no support, you have remote loader extracting the ore) , this is that area that once killed four miners from

Sloughing of the hanging wall, kana gone go kgona go wa letlapa lele kana ka Nissan Navara. The SLOS was also targeting the LOB mentioned above. This was a high grade high tonnage end which resulted in higher than budget grades for the shaft.

Mosimanegape Rekopanye(Graduate Trainee): He was also of exploration background, then we converted him to stofo. He once threatened to leave production after an encounter with masaete a 950ml moree ke aho roroma hella tswa mo dichaeneng. He mined stopes of high grade and

Tonnage also. Mind you Selebi shaft was had high chalcopyrite content Vs pyrotite so we were basically the copper mine while others produced more Nickel.

Mompoloki Gaborone(Staff Geologist): most experienced of all the staff Geos the mine had. On of his highlight project was th tailings sampling. A Geologist responsibility is not only limited to extraction but the whole mining process because what we need to th smelter

Determines the recoveries. So there was that project to reconcile feed to smelter recoveries.
He was also responsible for pillars reclamation, that is mining or support pillars from depleted stopes.
He was also responsible for another project, The Selebi Central.

There is another Orebody between Selebi north( the mine after seringa lodge) and Selebi shaft(the mine after the airport). The plan was to develop drives which will join these two shafts in order to extract the Selebi Central ore.

Kegaisitse Dikosha(Superintendent): this was our makhulu bass who supervised all the Geologists.
Under optimal operation a Geologist could supervised multiple crews from Diamond Drillers, Diamond Saw samplers, stope observers, assay samplers, store man and drivers.

This was a team of different personalities but we met out target from month to month, year to year. Kamoso ba tsoga bare we let the mine to liquidate ese nnete.

Signing out.
The Baba.