Production mining

The stopes will be fired out with the plans that are made up by the production engineer. These plans will have tonnage amounts and detonator numbers and locations.

Once the level driving has been has been completed then the long hole can go in and bore the rings. Rings are the blast holes between levels that follow the ore body up. This allows just the ore to be fired and drop onto the lower lever for bogging. This is where most of an underground mines ore comes from. These voids, once opened up are called stopes and range in size from 1½m to 15m₊ wide and the distance up to the next level above.

Charge up will then go in and charge the rise and fire it. The bogger then goes in and bogs the rock on manual, they often refer to this as free bogging because the remotes are not being used. They will then fire the first ring back from the now open rise. This rise is a 20m hole to the next level above which acts like a reamer when the first ring (row of blast holes) is fired. This is commonly referred to as opening the slot. Once the slot has been opened up then the rings can be fired in 2-8 lots at one time, this creates lots of dirt and this is where the mine makes its money. The Brow is the corner where the drive meets the stope and is the most dangerous place in an Hardrock underground mine.