RESPEC Mining & Energy Quarterly Newsletter September 2020
solving today’s problems
with tomorrow’s solutions
Table of contents 2
NEWSROOM » Girls in the Classroom » Assessing the Regal Mine in Dillon, MT For Expansions » Geotechnical Risk Assessment For a Large-Diameter Raised Bore Shaft
» Pushing the Alternative Energy Frontier For More Than 40 Years » New Securities and Exchange Commission Mining Disclosure – A Retrospective
GROWTH AND PEOPLE
10
» RESPEC Acquires North American Reserve » RESPEC’s Mining & Energy Summer Interns Share Their Experiences
PRESENTATIONS
13
» SEC Mining Disclosure Rule Updates » Transitioning Operations Underground
PARTNERSHIPS
15
» RESPEC and Campbell Scientific
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
17
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September 2020 RESPEC M&E Newsletter
Newsroom Girls in the classroom Unearthing Careers in Mining
Assessing the Regal Mine in Dillon, MT for expansions
Working Synergistically to Provide Mining, Environmental, and Regulatory Expertise
Geotechnical risk assessment for a large-diameter raised bore shaft
Ensuring Safe Ground Conditions for Raise Boring a 26-Foot Ventilation Shaft
Pushing the Alternative energy frontier for more than 40 years
Conventional and Alternative Energies to Fit Any RESPEC Client’s Needs
New securities and exchange commission mining disclosure – A Retrospective How to Address Changes That May Directly Affect You
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September 2020 RESPEC M&E Newsletter
Girls in the classroom Unearthing Careers in Mining
Reprinted with permission from the March/April 2020 issue of Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan (APEGS) publication The Professional Edge. https://www.apegs.ca/ Portal/Sites-Management/FileDownload/ DataDownload/87116/Issue 185 MarchApril 2020 Geoscience/pdf/1/1033 Deb Shewfelt, co-president and senior geoscientist of RESPEC Consulting (RESPEC’s Canadian subsidiary), grew up in oil-and-gas country along the border of the Saskatchewan potash basin. As a young girl, she watched several men from her hometown of Birtle, Manitoba, make the daily drive to work across the provincial border into Saskatchewan’s southeastern mining corridor. At the time, she was unaware that these world-class natural resources held promise for her future career. “For some reason, I didn’t even know about geoscience,” Ms. Shewfelt said. “I didn’t know about geology or that it was a legit career opportunity that I would later discover as my life’s passion at the University of Manitoba. I wish I would have had female mentorship to support the awareness of geoscience earlier in my educational journey. I was fortunate to find my calling—but what if I hadn’t stumbled upon it? I can’t imagine my life now without the great satisfaction that I have working as a geologist in western Canada.” That childhood memory was something that inspired Ms. Shewfelt to introduce Girls in the Classroom – Unearthing Career Opportunities in Mining, an educational outreach project
GITC Swale Map Making - Natalie Shepherd of the Saskatchewan First Nations Natural Resource Centre of Excellence, supports Brevoort Park School grade 6 students with map making using the field data collected at the Northeast Swale geo-Tracking event.
that engages elementary and high school girls. The goal of the project is to raise awareness of career opportunities centered around unconventional science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields in the mining and mineral sector through unique engagement with exemplary women from the industry. “It is an easy assumption to make that of course, young women know about mining and these diverse career opportunities in the province, but we still have a lot of work to do to promote the unconventional careers at which women are exceling,” said Ms. Shewfelt, who is also a professional geoscientist with the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan (APEGS), Engineers Geoscientists Manitoba (EGM), and the Northwest Territories and Nunavut Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists (NAPEG). Ms. Shewfelt volunteers on the APEGS
Students learn about contour maps, flood simulations and 3D topographic representations at the AR Sandbox station at the Girls In The Classroom Trades and Technology Exploration event at the Saskatoon campus.
Student Development Committee, where she champions student-industry engagement. “Mining and all of the supporting industries are such a major part of our economy. We need to continue to advise and support the consideration of this sector by female students and Indigenous youth.” Ms. Shewfelt says the heart and soul behind the Girls in the Classroom program is career awareness to highlight nonconventional STEM careers through living examples of women working in the sector and debunk stereotypes about what kinds of careers women can or should have. “Top to bottom, Saskatchewan is such a geological wonder. It makes sense for us to stay and work here in this province and to attract other people to come and work here,” she said. “Yes, we do need more women working in these careers. We need more diversity on our teams.” Ms. Shewfelt received funding to launch the 2-year pilot program from the International
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September 2020 RESPEC M&E Newsletter
Minerals Innovation Institute. While the pilot phase concluded on December 31, 2019, Ms. Shewfelt has been asked to plan several 2020 events and hopes to gain further support from industrial, educational, governmental, or other like-minded organizations to make these events happen. She has enjoyed engaging with similar projects, such as the Women in Mining and Women in Nuclear Saskatchewan Inc. (WIM/ WIN-SK) mentorship program (MentorSTEP) as well as the Women’s Mentorship Luncheon series put on jointly by the Ron and Jane Graham School of Professional Development, University of Saskatchewan College of Engineering, and APEGS 30 by 30 Committee. Ms. Shewfelt is also involved as a mentor in these programs and has recruited women from them to support the Girls in the Classroom initiatives. Two example projects undertaken by Girls in the Classroom over the past 2 years are the rocks, minerals, and erosion project for Grade 4 students and forces and simple machines for Grade 5 students. Before working on forces and simple machines, the students learned about various rocks, minerals, and erosion by investigating their elements and how they connect to Saskatchewan’s land, economy, industry, and environmental sustainability. The students welcomed a female geologist from the industry into the classroom to introduce her education and career path and share information on mining in Saskatchewan. The students were shown pictures and videos of machines that are used to dig, haul, and clean ore from various forms of mining. For a final project, the students were asked to combine their perception of these ideas to build a machine that could be used in the mining industry. Women who have carved careers in mining and minerals professions are assisting Ms. Shewfelt with this program. They volunteer to connect with teachers and students, share their stories and experiences, and relate these themes to the Saskatchewan Public Schools curriculum with hopes of inspiring the next generation. Several women from Saskatchewan companies such as Cameco, BHP, and K+S Potash have given their time to the program,
Program heads discuss the many innovative programs, including 3D printing lab and related technologies at the Girls In The Classroom Trades and Technology Exploration event in Saskatoon.
as have educators from the University of Saskatchewan College of Engineering and Saskatchewan Polytechnic. “It’s women like that who we want to hold up as great role models for these young women to aspire to and use their unique skill sets as a woman to really help support and enhance STEM in general. Most of what I do comes from a desire to open young minds about what a career in mining can look like. Women have significant, diverse, and relevant ideas to share and the mining and minerals sector knows it.” The industry has made strides in diversifying its workforce from leadership roles to underground mining. In 2019, Jessica Theriault, P.Eng. wrapped up her term as chair of the Board of Directors for the Saskatchewan Mining Association. Her term marked the first time in 50-plus years that the association had a female chair. Karen Swager is the first female potash business unit senior vice president. The women who volunteer for the Girls in the Classroom program highlight the classes in high school that are prerequisites courses for college as well as post-secondary training avenues to explore. Inspiring and mentoring youth and, particularly, female and Indigenous students, and encouraging them to explore a career in
STEM is a goal of the Girls in the Classroom initiative. The program’s premise is targeted at the elementary and high school demographic, but Ms. Shewfelt admitted that she gets a lot from the program as well. “There’s a huge satisfaction in sharing your story and potentially inspiring someone else,” she said. “You’re being a mentor in an informal way. How can I help somebody find their unique path? If our stories help girls and young women discover their passion, in particular one that they had not previously considered, then we’ve succeeded.”
For detailed information, please contact Deb Shewfelt, RESPEC Canadian Co-President,at Debra.Shewfelt@respec.com
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September 2020 RESPEC M&E Newsletter
Assessing the Regal Mine in Dillon, MT for expansions Working Synergistically to Provide Mining, Environmental, and Regulatory Expertise
RESPEC staff are completing an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for a proposed amendment to the Barretts Minerals, Inc. (BMI) existing Mine Operating Permit on the Regal Mine that would expand the existing pit, increase the size of the mine’s waste rock disposal facility (WRDF), and expand the mine’s water management system. BMI has been mining talc ore from the Regal Mine, located 11 miles southeast of Dillon, Montana, since 1972. RESPEC is preparing the EIS to satisfy requirements of the Metal Mine Reclamation Act (MMRA) and the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) serving as the lead agency. RESPEC staff were responsible for all aspects of the EIS, including project management, purpose and need development, alternative development and refinement, public scoping, preparation of technical memos, compiling and indexing the administrative record, writing and assembling the EIS text, compiling and reporting public comments, and analyzing impacts related to three alternatives. RESPEC resource specialists working on the EIS include experts in geology and geochemistry, groundwater and surfacewater resources, geotechnical engineering, land use, socioeconomics, soils and reclamation, transportation, hydrogeology, aquatic resources, air quality, and noise. The key issues of concern that are being addressed include geotechnical stability of the pit and WRDF, water rights, and surface-water and groundwater management. RESPEC also evaluated alternative reclamation designs for partial pit backfilling and, ultimately,
Above: A view of the waste rock pile at Regal Mine. Below: A view of the Regal Mine pit from above.
the preferred alternative for mosaic vegetation reclamation of the WRDF. The Draft EIS has been released for public comment and RESPEC will address comments and prepare the Final EIS. RESPEC was well suited for preparing this EIS. Our staff worked across business units to synergistically meld our mining, environmental, and regulatory experience (as well as vocabulary)
into a comprehensive report. RESPEC’s staff are ready to help on your next environmental sampling plan, permit application, or reclamation plan design.
For detailed information, please contact RESPEC’s Crystal Hocking, PG, Staff Geologist, at Crystal. Hocking@respec.com
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September 2020 RESPEC M&E Newsletter
Geotechnical risk assessment for a large-diameter raised bore shaft Ensuring Safe Ground Conditions for Raise Boring a 26-Foot Ventilation Shaft
Ventilation shafts are critically important safety features of gassy underground mines and some of the first excavations to take place in a new mine or mine expansion. A RESPEC client proposed excavating the full 26-foot (ft) diameter of the newest ventilation shaft for its planned mine expansion by using raise-boring methods. Raise boring is preferable to traditional drill-and-blast excavation methods because the shaft’s diameter will be more consistent, the method is often faster and more predictable than drilling and blasting, and fewer ignition sources exist for methane that may be present in the mine. Because some ground conditions are unsuitable for raise boring, a robust assessment of geotechnical risk must be performed before planning to excavate with a raise borer. To support our client’s goals of saving time and money and increasing safety, RESPEC performed a comprehensive geotechnical risk assessment for a 1,500-ft-deep, raise-bore ventilation shaft with one of the largest diameters that can be used with the raise-boring method (26 ft). The client had previously used raise-boring methods but only to a
Services: » Rock testing » Empirical stability evaluations » Rock mechanics » Numerical modeling » Stability analysis » Core logging » Risk assessment
diameter of 16 ft with concerns regarding stability during construction. Based on our initial review and analysis, RESPEC concluded that the risk assessment performed for the previous raise-bore shaft was unnecessarily conservative, and that a 26-ft-diameter shaft may be feasible and involve lower risk than originally anticipated. By using a combination of industry-standard empirical methods and advanced threedimensional (3D) numerical models, RESPEC successfully showed that the geotechnical risk of excavating the shaft with raise-boring methods was low and the client could save time and money by using a full-diameter, raise-bore cutting head. We logged more than 1,500 ft of rock core for geotechnical properties and tested more than two dozen samples for unconfined compressive strength and static and dynamic elastic constants. We then used the core logs and laboratory testing data to perform an empirical risk assessment and built a 3D numerical model to predict the convergence and rock damage that may occur during excavation. The 3D model also served to verify empirical methods and, as we expected, confirmed the results of our empirical analysis. After conducting laboratory test on the rock core from a borehole that was located close to a previously raise-bore shaft with a smaller diameter (16 ft), we created a separate 3D model and compared it with information collected following the smaller-diameter excavation as well as the model of the larger-diameter shaft. Our comparison indicated that the predicted behavior of the shaft was similar to what was observed in the field, and the larger-diameter shaft was unlikely to have substantially more convergence or rock damage than the narrower shaft.
Miners watch as the pilot hole for a raised bore penetrates into a pre-excavation at the bottom of the planned shaft.
Our recommendations and final risk assessment report were critical to the client’s construction bid process and ultimately helped the client save time, save money, and increase safety.
For detailed information, please contact RESPEC’s Ben Haugen, Project Engineer, at Ben.Haugen@respec.com
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September 2020 RESPEC M&E Newsletter
Pushing the Alternative energy frontier for more than 40 years Conventional and Alternative Energies to Fit Any RESPEC Client’s Needs
RESPEC has a long history of supporting the global development of alternative energy projects and technologies. In addition to geothermal, wind, and solar energy expertise, our engineers and scientists push the state-of-the-art in emerging technologies such as Compressed-Air Energy Storage (CAES), hydrogen storage, carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration, and critical elements (e.g., lithium and cobalt) that support the energy industry. Our involvement with conventional and alternative energies provides clients with diverse and forward-thinking solutions.
The geothermal group at RESPEC has been involved with development projects in North and South America and Geothermal is currently advancing projects in British Columbia and Nunavut, Canada. We are also leading a research and development project sponsored by the US Department of Energy (DOE) for an innovative measurement technology in support of enhanced geothermal systems. For more than a decade, our engineers have played a pivotal role in understanding and solving the challenging Wind geotechnical issues that are associated with the heavy construction of wind-turbine farms. RESPEC has developed innovative geotechnical solutions that increase safety and improve construction efficiency. Our geologists and engineers have provided on-site support in evaluating the geological considerations that are Solar critical for effective solar farm development and construction. Our support has included analyzing shallow borings and surficial geology.
RESPEC has more than 40 years of CAES project Compressed-air experience dating back to energy storage our pioneering research (caes) sponsored by the DOE in the 1970s. In addition to over a dozen past CAES projects spread across four continents, RESPEC continues to support CAES developers with geological investigations, laboratory testing, and design services. RESPEC currently supports CO2 sequestration CO2 development projects in Sequestration Ohio, United States, and Saskatchewan, Canada. We are also leading DOE-sponsored research that supports stateof-the-art measurements of the in situ stress within CO2 sequestration reservoirs to improve performance and mitigate induced seismicity. Our engineers have more than a decade of experience in supporting the development of Hydrogen subsurface hydrogen storage storage and understanding the unique thermodynamic and operational requirements of hydrogen storage. We continue to make advancements by pursuing innovative research and development concepts that support hydrogen storage technology.
Our mining expertise supports the alternative Lithium and cobalt energy industry by providing unique solutions for producing lithium and cobalt—two critical components of advanced battery technology. Our lithium and cobalt experience spans the globe, including regions with challenging geologic conditions. For more information on how RESPEC works with and serves the Energy industry, please visit https://www.respec.com/market/energy/.
On-site geologic services provided by RESPEC for an energy drilling project.
For detailed information, please contact RESPEC’s Sam Voegeli, Staff Consultant, at Sam.Voegeli@respec.com
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September 2020 RESPEC M&E Newsletter
New securities and exchange commission mining disclosure – A Retrospective How to Address Changes That May Directly Affect You
We are approaching the 2-year mark since the October 2018 announcement of the final rule addressing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulation Modernization of Property Disclosures for Mining Registrants, which is generally known as S-K 1300. People are still asking questions about what this regulation means for them and their businesses. To avoid getting stuck in the regulation details, we have compiled the following observations based on our experience in addressing this regulation and many conversations with clients, company representatives, peers in the industry, and the SEC. We hope that you will find our advice and views on the subject helpful and practical.
The do’s and don’ts of the Modernization of Property Disclosures for Mining Registrants regulation Do NOT panic, but do not relax and ignore the regulation, either. You have time to get ready to comply with the new regulation, and you may find that you have fulfilled more of the requirements than you think.
Do start getting things in order now. Do NOT get overwhelmed by the regulation itself. Yes, the initial announcement was 450-plus pages and the key components of the regulation account for approximately 30 pages in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), but what you need to be doing is straightforward enough and can be easily explained and understood.
Do NOT look to the regulation to tell you how to do the work that is required. The regulation is about disclosure and does not tell you how to estimate your resources and reserves. The S-K 1300 lays out some expectations of the level of work required to support the disclosure. For the most part, you have already done or know how to do the work. New SEC
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September 2020 RESPEC M&E Newsletter
So, What Do You Need to Know? The Qualified Person (QP). This element is important, as the QP is responsible for the information disclosed; however, the QP also has plenty of discretion to apply their judgement to the various work elements, including the data, underlying studies, or work supporting the estimate, as well as the estimates of resources and reserves. Remember that the regulation does not tell you how to do this work but simply informs you on what type of work is required. The judgement of the QP is key, which is why a QP is required to have at least 5 years of relevant experience in the type of mineralization, deposit, and activity being undertaken.
Data and Models. Some individuals, especially at existing operations, have expressed concerns regarding the need to obtain more exploration data or develop new geologic models with complex tools that were not previously deemed necessary. Determining the adequacy of data, approach to modeling, and tools required is solely the responsibility of the QP. The regulation provides definitions for guidance on what would be considered limited, adequate, and conclusive geological evidence, but these definitions are not prescriptive; further, no prescriptive statement or guidance is available on how a resource model should be developed. The experience and judgement of the QP are the basis for determining what is needed.
The underlying work supporting the estimation of a reserve for a property will be similar regardless of whether or not a summary report is required. The real work is in estimating the resources and reserves, not in the technical report summary. If required, this document is included in disclosure materials.
How Should You Get Started? RESPEC recommends getting started with a gap analysis if you have not already done so. You have likely been preparing estimates of resources and reserves for years, so do not automatically assume that you need to start over. A gap analysis will compare the documentation that you have and the methodology used to arrive at your current estimates with what the regulation outlines. You may decide that the optimal solution is to start over. However, if you determine that, with a little work, some areas will bring your estimates into compliance with the requirements of the new regulation, that method may be the best approach. Once you have figured out the path you need to follow, again, do not panic, but do get started, as 2022 will be here soon. Help is available at any level that you may need—we are here to help you navigate the new rule and are happy to engage in a conversation to explore these ideas or determine your next steps.
Supporting Studies. The regulation includes the requirement of preliminary feasibility or feasibility studies to support reserves estimation (a lower-level study can support the estimation of a resource if reserves are not yet applicable). What does this rule mean at an existing operation? The supporting documentation (or “study”) should simply be a description of what the operation is doing and is planned to do. The speculation that is inherent in the development phases of a project is gone or significantly reduced. Experience replaces models of the geology, designs and assumptions concerning the mining process, estimation of mining equipment and processing plant performance, and estimation of costs. A forward-looking component also exists, but much of that component is now based on real experience and should be supported by analysis of historical performance and reconciliation and verification of the assumptions used to develop reserves estimates. The information and factors that need to be considered and evaluated are set out and discussed in the regulations. How the information is compiled, considered, and evaluated is up to the QP, for the most part. Some prescriptive requirements are also included but are limited. While the list may seem daunting, remember that more engineering is usually completed after the feasibility study is finished to actually develop the project, and most of the information should be readily available.
Technical Report Summary. The keyword here is summary. This document, if required, presents a summary in a prescribed format of the information and factors that support the estimates of resources and reserves.
For detailed information, please contact RESPEC’s Tabetha Stirrett, RESPEC Canadian Co-President at Tabetha.Stirrett@respec.com or Peter Christensen, Principal Consultant at Peter.Christensen@respec.com.
September 2020 10 RESPEC M&E Newsletter
Growth and People RESPEC Acquires North American Reserve
The Newest Addition to the RESPEC Team Serves the Construction Aggregate and Industrial Minerals Market
RESPEC’s mining & energy summer interns share their experiences
Amidst an Unpredictable Work Environment, RESPEC Interns Rose to the Occasion
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September 2020 RESPEC M&E Newsletter
RESPEC Acquires North American reserve The Newest Addition to the RESPEC Team Serves the Construction Aggregate and Industrial Minerals Market
quarry-phasing plans that can be implemented and used for monitoring and management purposes. “North American Reserve is well-known within the industry for delivering value and integrity for every client and project they serve. I am excited to have them continue expanding RESPEC’s services to the mining industry,” said RESPEC’s Senior Vice President of Mining & Energy John Morgan.
In July, RESPEC announced the acquisition of North American Reserve, a geologic consulting business serving the construction aggregate and industrial minerals market. The North American Reserve division of RESPEC will remain based in Laconia, New Hampshire. North American Reserve, founded in 1989, is an environmental, geologic, and mining consulting company that provides geological, technical, and management services to the construction aggregate, surface- and underground-mining, and heavy construction industries. Clients include investors, producers, and operators throughout the US and Canada. North American Reserve has significant experience in every stage of the quarry design process in North America, from resource evaluation, environmental risk assessment, regulatory management, and feasibility studies to preparing documentation supporting planning applications and detailed
Mr. Michael Wright will remain as the manager of this division. Mr. Wright’s career has focused on evaluating, permitting, and developing aggregate operations throughout the US. He has a geology degree from Connecticut State University and is a registered Professional Geologist in New Hampshire. Mr. Wright said, “Our collective experience and desire to grow make this partnership ideal for RESPEC and North American Reserve. While we continue to base our operations in New Hampshire, I’m excited to see how we can contribute to additional projects throughout the country and around the world.” Other members of the North American Reserve team joining RESPEC include Brett Beliveau, who spent more than 20 years in the military as a civil engineer technician and now focuses on the construction aggregate mining sector; Kirsten Stokes who holds a master’s degree in geology from the University of North Carolina and specializes in geological analysis of soil,
groundwater, and surface water; and Derek Drouin, a Geologist in Training and project geologist with a focus on mine planning and exploration. Visit RESPEC’s website (http://www.respec.com) and North American Reserve’s website (www. northamericanreserve.com) to learn more about the services that these two companies offer. For detailed information, please contact RESPEC’s Mike Wright at Michael.Wright@respec.com
September 2020 12 RESPEC M&E Newsletter
RESPEC’s mining & energy summer interns share their experiences Amidst an Unpredictable Work Environment, RESPEC Interns Rose to the Occasion
RESPEC’s internship program has provided me with a valuable learning opportunity. As a member of the modeling team, I gained exposure to the FLAC3D program and the workflow for geomechanical analysis. The objective of my first project in FLAC3D was writing a function that could verify if boundary conditions had been applied properly to cavern models. The objective of the following project was to investigate how a command approach for cavern excavation differed from the standard method currently used. Through these projects, I strengthened my coding skills, ability to verify results using engineering principles, and overall understanding of how solutions are derived using finite element analysis software. In addition to those projects, I have been working on an internal interactive map called mapFeeder™. The goal of the map is to enable users to effectively search for caverns and locate associated information, including the API number, operator, product stored, and RESPEC reports and sonars. Making this information readily accessible will greatly benefit the Mining & Energy business unit by minimizing the research process. I want to thank RESPEC and the modeling team for the opportunity to be a team member and develop as a young professional.”
Molly Keller Rapid City, SD
South Dakota School of Mines & Technology Mechanical Engineering Senior, Graduating December 2020
The internship program at RESPEC has been an insightful journey for me in coming from an undergraduate program. Regardless of their positions, the people I worked with were encouraging and welcoming. I immediately needed to communicate with other engineers, clients, or even staff outside the department for the tasks that I worked on. Each person was helpful and made an effort to work with me one-on-one. Most of my tasks concentrated on project-related work for mining clients. Whether it was a model generation or extracting postprocess results, I had the department’s help, and the level of teamwork was excellent. Through the tasks that I worked on, I was shown how meaningful the work was. I prepared presentations for my mentor in which some images and tables were used in a client meeting. It was incredible to see my work as an intern being used throughout the company and that I had made an impact.”
Caiden Merritt Rapid City, SD
South Dakota School of Mines & Technology Mechanical Engineering Senior, Graduating in December 2020
For detailed information on RESPEC’s Internship Program, please contact RESPEC’s Amy Hasvold, Strategic Programs Manager, at Amy.Hasvold@respec.com or visit this page on our website: https://www.respec.com/our-careers/internships/
September 2020 13 RESPEC M&E Newsletter
Presentations SEC Mining Disclosure rule updates Presented by Peter Christensen
Transitioning operations underground Presented by John Morgan and Peter Christensen
September 2020 14 RESPEC M&E Newsletter
Presentations Access RESPEC’s Latest Presentations:
SEC Mining Disclosure Rule Updates TMRA Annual Meeting
Resources for a connected world Transitioning Operations Underground - Why and How Much?
Peter Christensen, Principal consultant
By: John Morgan and Peter Christensen
October 2019
RESPEC.COM
SEC Mining Disclosure Rule Updates
Transitioning Operations Underground
Presented by Peter Christensen, Principal Consultant TMRA Annual Meeting, October 2019 Peter.Christensen@respec.com
Presented by John Morgan, Senior Vice President and Peter Christensen, Principal Consultant TMRA Annual Meeting, October 2019 John.Morgan@respec.com Peter.Christensen@respec.com
September 2020 15 RESPEC M&E Newsletter
partnerships respec and campbell scientific Partners in Instrumentation
September 2020 16 RESPEC M&E Newsletter
respec and campbell scientific Partners in Instrumentation
RESPEC's Rapid City instrumentation team draws on various disciplines to build monitoring, data collection, and control systems for our diverse clientele. These systems frequently rely on Campbell Scientific dataloggers and hardware. Campbell Scientific is known for stateside manufacturing of robust, low-power, versatile equipment. RESPEC designs, programs, and installs the systems that we provide to our clients. The instrumentation team works closely with engineers from RESPEC’s Mining & Energy and Water & Natural Resources business units along with Campbell Scientific’s application engineers to incorporate systems where field data, process data, or controls are required. We have installed weather stations on volcanoes, monitoring systems in caves, creepclosure systems in salt mines, early-warning alarm systems near sinkholes, and equipment in swamps where airboats provide the only access. RESPEC has designed heater-control systems for long-term, nuclear-waste disposal and high-temperature, rock-melt experiments, as well as control systems to remotely automate gate structures in large-scale irrigation systems. Our projects often use two-way radio or cellular telemetry to transmit data in real time. Our clients benefit from immediate access to data and our ability to remotely troubleshoot systems, change datalogger programs and settings, and update datalogger operating systems. The instrumentation team often incorporates secure online dashboards to cost-effectively display client data and allow data downloads for further processing. Data postprocessing is typically done in the R programming language and uses RStudio to create custom, HTML-based analytical reports for clients or project engineers. Because the reports are in HTML, they are platformindependent; can contain charts incorporating dynamic widgets; are easily modified; may include a mixture of text, figures, and charts; and are fully reproducible.
For detailed information, please contact RESPEC’s Eric Krantz, Project Engineer, at Eric.Krantz@respec.com or click on the links to the right.
September 2020 17 RESPEC M&E Newsletter
Calendar of events As a result of continued uncertainty along with state, local and health agency directives regarding COVID-19, all in-person conference attendance has been canceled for RESPEC employees for 2020. We urge you to connect with us by email and telephone, our website, and our social media channels. We wish you all good health and safety and look forward to meeting you at these conferences when they are rescheduled.
October 2020
Thank You
Fluorspar 2020 Online Mining Tech Brazil Kansas Geology and Well Technology Seminar Online
November 2020 Sauls Seismic Technical Demonstration Day TBD Pennsylvania Drilling and Blasting Conference Postponed AEMA Annual Meeting Online
December 2020
Coming soon:
Webinars
Please join us in the coming weeks as our industry experts host webinars around Green Energy and Mining, How to Prepare for Resource Estimation, and What You Need to Know about Geotechnical Risk Assessments. Invites and more details will be delivered once final dates are set.
Kentucky Underground Safety Seminar TBD Kentucky Blasting Conference Indiana Society of Mining and Reclamation Tech Transfer TBD Saskatchewan Geological Open House Canceled
Stay connected with RESPEC digitally through our social media accounts or contact Tabetha Stirrett at Tabetha.Stirrett@respec.com
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