MEND Project 1.15.2a
September 1995

Executive Summary

Welcome to MINEWALL 2.0! This program assists you in simulating open-pit mines or underground workings, during operation and/or closure. The fundamental objective of MINEWALL 2.0 is to provide you with a flexible tool for forecasting geochemical conditions in a mine.

In addition to this User's Manual, there are three other, related reports. The first is a literature review and discussion of the conceptual models on which MINEWALL is based. Because of all the previous work examined, MINEWALL offers you an up-to-date, organized approach for predicting water chemistry in a mine, even if you do not actually use the computer program. This underlying MINEWALL approach and its conceptual models offer guidance on which physical, geochemical, and biological data should be collected before, during, and after mining. In other words, the current value of MINEWALL to a mining company might not lie in running the computer program itself, but in designing a monitoring program to collect the data that would be needed to run it.

A second related report is the application of MINEWALL 2.0 to three mines in British Columbia. The Main Zone Pit at Equity Silver Mines was simulated with MINEWALL 1.0 and is re-simulated for comparison. BHP Canada's Island Copper Mine will be closing shortly and has completed a detailed closure plan. Noranda Minerals' Bell Mine has already closed and the pit is currently filling with water. MINEWALL has been used for refining closure options at Island Copper and for estimating future water chemistry in all three pits. This related report should be consulted if you wish to see detailed applications of MINEWALL 2.0.

A third related report is the Programmer's Notes and Source Code. This report discusses some of the more technical aspects of MINEWALL's programming and contains a listing of MINEWALL's roughly 24,000 lines of code.

Based on the aforementioned descriptions of MINEWALL's literature review, conceptual models, application, and size, it should be apparent that MINEWALL requires a great deal of data to properly simulate a mine. In reality, you can simulate a mine with very little data. For example, you can run MINEWALL at monthly, rather than weekly frequency, using one water analysis of water and published rates of geochemical reactions. The important point to remember is: if you enter data not representative of your mine into MINEWALL, do not expect MINEWALL to magically provide representative estimates. The old computer acronym is GIGO: Garbage In, then Garbage Out. MINEWALL will use whatever numbers you give it: you must decide if those numbers are appropriate.

A note about "bugs", or problems in the code, is appropriate here. The number of bugs in a program, and the frequency that they appear, depends on how often the program is run. For example, some bugs might only appear on average once every tenth run; others once every thousandth run. Some bugs may only appear when a user enters an unexpected series of input data. In any case, MINEWALL will in theory never be free of bugs, but we have eliminated the most frequently appearing ones. If you are unfortunate enough to encounter a bug, please tell us about it and send any input data you saved. The address and phone number are listed in Chapter 6. Please keep in mind that MINEWALL 2.0 has been overdesigned for most existing PC's (some simulations can require over 50 Mb of extended memory!) and an apparent bug may actually be a limitation in a particular PC. MINEWALL warns you of some potential problems when you start it.

We can offer no warranty on MINEWALL code or its results, but we can ensure you we are committed to providing a high-quality tool for the prediction of minewater chemistry. We will have accomplished our primary objective if MINEWALL 2.0 guides you and saves your time in obtaining a minewater prediction.

Last Modified: 2003-11-26		Important Notices

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