Fairbanks lab enhances Alaska's mining industry.

• Author: Phelps, Jack E.
• Position: University of Alaska Fairbanks, Minerals Industry Research Laboratory

Dr. P.D. Rao loves his work. This becomes evident when you show up at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) for a visit to the Minerals Industry Research Laboratory (MIRL). Professor of coal technology at UAF, Rao is the moving spirit behind MIRL. The laboratory was established in 1963 by the Alaska Legislature, and Rao was chosen in 1966 to direct the activities of the new research facility.

Since then, MIRL has conducted many studies of Alaska minerals and has produced dozens of reports and working papers. MIRL publications help Alaska's mining industry evaluate the best ways to develop and market Alaska's vast mineral deposits.

Rao's enthusiasm is infectious. Usibelli Coal Mine's Charlie Green says, "Having a lab here in Alaska, with people who are experienced in coal characterization, is a real benefit to the Alaska coal industry."

Teresa Imm, a geologist with ASCG, an Anchorage-based engineering and architectural firm, agrees. "I suppose we could send our samples to some other lab," Imm says, "But MIRL is in-state, and they do good work. So we send our lab work to them."

Green points out that not only does MIRL do "quality professional work," but having a university-based, independent laboratory to do coal-sample analysis gives the industry more credibility than if the lab tests were done at in-house facilities. Green says his company is glad "to have the lab and people with expertise in Alaska coal as well as in the technology that goes with coal in general."

According to Daniel Walsh, one of four full-time faculty members working at MIRL, a main focus of the lab has been to assist mines in improving their product and production levels and in finding the most effective methods of exploration. MIRL's work is essentially "extension work with the minerals industry," says Walsh.

HIGH TECH APPLICATIONS

The arrangement seems to work well both for industrial clients, who reap production benefits from MIRL's research, and for academics, who have the opportunity to see the fruits of their research put immediately into practical use. A case in point is the radio-tracer technology now being used to enhance sluicebox recovery of gold in placer mines. The technology was developed out of research done at MIRL by Walsh and reported in MIRL Report #70, published in May 1985.

The technique involves introducing irradiated gold particles to the pay dirt before it enters the sluicebox. The gold can then be traced precisely as it moves through the wash...