Mining Terminology Q - S

• Quartz: Usual rock forming mineral that is made up of silicon and oxygen.

• Quartzite: Consisting of a metamorphic rock that is shaped by the alteration of sandstone by heat and pressure.

• Rock mechanics: This is the study of the mechanical properties of rocks

• Rod mill: Is made up of a rotating steel cylinder that utilizes steel rods to be able to grind up ore.

• Room-and-pillar mining: A technique of mining ore deposits that is lying flat in which the area or rooms that are mined, are divided by pillars that are around the same size.

• Rotary drill: A machine that drills holes by rotating a rigid, tubular string of drill rods to which is attached a bit. Commonly used for drilling large-diameter blastholes in open-pit mines.

• Run-of-mine: This is a term that is used describe ore of average grade.

• Stratigraphy: Consists of the description of bedded rock sequences.

• Streak: An indicative characteristic of minerals, where scratching a sample on a piece of unglazed porcelain leaves powder of a distinguishing color.

• Striations: Outstanding equivalent scratches left on bedrock by glaciers.

• Stringer: A thin vein or uneven filament of a mineral or minerals that cross a rock mass.

• Strip: To eliminate the overburden or waste rock overlying an ore body .

• Stripping ratio: The ratio of tonnes removed as waste relative to the number of tonnes of ore removed from an open-pit mine.