Not quite mining history, but I was prompted to mention this here
because recently a member of the list mentioned that his
grandfather had been a shaft sinker.......
Last night I went to a talk by two engineers from Cementation (now
Cementation/Skanska) who were talking about recent projects they
had worked on, including the South Deeps shaft in South Africa
which, in a single lift, is 3003 metres (9,845 feet) deep! Some
rather graphic photgraphs showed the steel ropes used were at
about the limit of present technology, and yet....
In the planning stage in the same country is Western Ultra Deeps,
where the plan is to sink a single-lift shaft to 5 kilometres depth.
Key question : can they get the rope designs right in time?
Tony Brewis
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