Kidd Creek Mining Expedition

My first sampling trip with the new lab was to an alien environment for me - a deep sub-surface mine. Specifically, I spent a week in Timmins, Ontario where the Kidd Creek mine managed by the Xstrata mining company is located. I got to go "underground" on two days - Wednesday and Thursday. This was a very unusual experience for me since most of our sampling is done not on land as this was, but at sea. But it all boils down to the same tubing and carboy and filtering problems no matter where you are.

I have to credit our guide, Alex, a geologist at Kidd Creek with making this trip seem normal and not dangerous. She was just matter-of-fact about everything. "Stay with me at all times." "No, you can not go to the bathroom unless we all go." "Can I see you there? Then don't go there." This gives you some idea of the safety info we got before hand - the answers to literally 7 of the 8 questions on the safety quiz were some variation of "do not leave your guide".

You wouldn't want to leave your guide because the mine is very much like a giant rabbit warren with no light, water, and the constant danger of rock "burst" or rock explosions from the releasing of pressure/stress built up in some portion of the mine. I'm pretty sure I would have gotten lost in 2 minutes down there without Alex. It all looks the same - dark, rocks, dust, metal scraps, re-bar rock nets, and the occasionally grime covered human in a large vehicle.

We were able to use a truck each day instead of riding the cages down. This was a lot like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Each day starts with the opening of two steel garage doors leading to a dark tunnel coated in some type of cement with pipes running along the ceiling, some of them dripping water, with the only light coming from a truck's headlights. We would follow this ramp that slopes and spirals downward at about a 17degree incline until we reached the levels we would sample from. Every hundred feet deeper marked a new level. The first day I was down we sampled on the 7850 ft and 9000ft levels - so 9000 feet underground. The second day we went to the deepest portion of the current large-scale mining operation - 9200ft and got to sample on a working drilling platform. I believe this is one of the three deepest mines in the world. It was amazing to see the drilling equipment, like giant iron oxen with lots of pneumatic pistons. The mine currently is doing mostly copper and zinc work, but I think other parts of the mine (it has 4 shafts) mine other things. After about 6 hours of work, we'd have to make the drive back up the ramp - an hour of roller-coaster like turns in a speeding 4x4. Definitely worth it.

We were sampling the water and gases that filled some of the exploration boreholes that the company used to map the location of its ore veins. This wasn't too physically difficult - the truck meant that we did not have to carry our gear very far and the ventilation shaft was actually windy, so it didn't get very hot (heat and pressure increase underground). But it did smell (imagine a little rotten eggs, lots of stinky gym socks), and the water was acidic (so your skin would feel soapy as the acid dissolved away your dead skin cells). My lab manager and I had prepared for the heat with steam room visits for the two weeks before the trip, but it was never worse than a Florida summer afternoon.

Yeah, so it was pretty amazing. Just completely different from anywhere else I have ever been. I could regale you with stories I heard from the other researchers from mines in Africa and from Alex about being a woman in this environment... It really seemed like visiting a different planet.