Pit & Quarry, May 2018
CRUSHING HYDRAULIC BREAKING indicated Jessup may potentially have large stores of Baltimore gabbro Zoom out and youll spot another uncommon aspect of Savage Stones location just beyond its buffer ring of trees lie sprawling residential neighborhoods and upmarket shopping centers Unlike established quarries that can benefit from being grandfathered into high population area zoning ordinances Savage Stone is a relative newcomer to the area Before opening in 2004 the quarry had to earn the communitys trust that its operations would not affect quality of life Savage Stone kept its word and today the quarry is one of Jessups biggest benefactors THE ONLY WAY IS DOWN At Savage Stone gabbro is mined from five 43 ft tall benches with chemical rock hardness increasing with each lower level The shot rock is loaded into Volvo 35 and 40 ton articulated haul trucks and 100 ton Euclid rigids and transported a half mile uphill to the Lippmann 5062 jaw crusher This primary crusher processes rock to 5 to 7 in then stockpiles the material on the surge pile for the finishing plant where it is crushed to 15 in minus As Savage Stones pit deepened haul roads grew longer and cycle times increased In response the company put its primary crusher at the bottom of the pit so it was hauling rock downhill instead of up Stephanie Poole mining engineer and pit supervisor at Savage Stone explains how the quarry exhausted its pit boundaries to the north and west so expansion is moving to the south side of the pit and into lower levels of rock reserves As the pit deepened our haul roads grew longer and increased cycle time which in turn slowed production Poole SAVAGE STONE Employees 50 Fleet size 50 pieces of mobile equipment Website www savagestone com says We instead looked at the economic aspect of putting the primary crusher closer to the deposits and hauling rock downhill A major capital project started in spring 2017 to relocate the primary crusher nearly 380 ft below its current elevation and install conveyors to shuttle the crushed stone uphill to the finishing plant The production benefit is two fold First loaded trucks traveling downhill can operate faster Second they use gravity to save on fuel consumption HARD ROCK NUMBERS If the crushing plant is the heart of a quarry the first line excavator could be described as the pulse setting cycle times based on how fast it can load trucks As part of the expansion project the As part of an expansion project Savage Stone upgraded its primary excavator to the Volvo EC750E to meet increased production while handling the uber abrasive environment and 12 hour shifts S2 PIT QUARRY May 2018 pitandquarry com
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