Homo sapiens.

Therefore, when they plan the construction area, they usually choose a relatively gentle halfway up the mountain.

Pointing to the mountain on the left, Wang Dayou said: "The Thorny Tree Mountain is better. It can be transformed into a flat land of about 0.6 kilometers."

"Huh? Gong Wang, something is wrong with the magnetic field here!" Another engineer said holding a compass.

Everyone also found that the compass was indeed a little abnormal.

Wu Gang called the technician in charge of the exploration work.

"Have any metallic minerals been found in the drilled core?"

The technician shook his head: "No, our underground pillars are usually 200 meters long. The abnormal magnetic field may be due to the relatively high iron content of the surrounding rocks!"

Wu Gang, who was not satisfied with the technician's words, reprimanded directly: "Be careful next time, since you find a problem with the magnetic field, you must report it in time."

"Sorry! I will definitely pay attention next time." The technician was taken aback.

Wu Gang ordered: "Reorganize the exploration, drill a 500-meter well, and drill a few more points around."

Encountering this kind of thing, Wang Dayou and others also looked at each other in blank dismay. This kind of magnetic field anomaly area is usually the characteristic of metal veins, but they don't know what kind of metal mine it is.

If it is precious metals, or rare metals, or rich ore, then the planning and construction plan of the seventh district will definitely be affected.

Therefore, their investigation this time could only be ended in a hurry.

The exploration team increased the drilling depth and conducted a more thorough exploration of the surrounding mountains and strata.

For these mountainous areas and non-actually controlled areas, Hongshawadi's previous exploration was not comprehensive, and some were even blank.

Therefore, the Homo sapiens company is preparing for the exploration here.

On the one hand, a formal exploration team is formed, and on the other hand, various engineering projects in the mountainous area are used to conduct rough exploration in the surrounding area.

1 Chapter Eighty

three days later.

Wu Gang saw the mass spectrometry test report fed back by the exploration team, and finally figured out what was underground in District Seven.

In the cores of three of the drilling sites, the magnetite composition was detected, and this is not pure magnetite, but magnetite containing titanium and vanadium.

Molybdenum and rhenium were also found.

He is not a newcomer to geology and mining, so he quickly reported the matter to the headquarters.

The discovery of iron ore is secondary, but the titanium vanadium molybdenum rhenium associated with iron ore is the important discovery in this exploration.

Less than two days.

Hundreds of professional geological exploration and mining professionals secretly appeared in the seventh area of ​​the Longerang Mountain Space Base.

The mineralogist Weng Xuehai who led the team, after on-site exploration, determined 12 drilling points again according to the surrounding terrain and mountain trend.

Wu Gang was very concerned about this exploration: "Dr. Weng, what do you think of the potential of this mining area, and will it affect the construction of the aerospace base?"

"Preliminarily, in the three drilling sites where minerals were discovered, the reservoirs are all between 450 and 570 meters, the thickness of the ore layer is about 60 to 70 meters, and the area is about 50 square meters. The ore is about 1.5 million tons."

"so much?"

"It's just that the grade is a little low. The grade of the samples at the three points is only about 34%, which is barely considered an ordinary iron ore! And the burial location is too deep." Weng Xuehai said helplessly.

Ba Kang, another engineer specializing in mining, smiled and shook his head: "Dr. Weng, you don't have to worry about this. The company has the technology to solve mining and beneficiation problems in ultra-deep formations."

Weng Xuehai also seemed to have heard some internal information: "Is it the biological erosion technology and fluid boiling extraction technology that you experimented a while ago?"

"Yes." Bacon nodded.

He is the lead engineer of the technical test.

Weng Xuehai glanced at the topographic map: "If you want to use your new technology, you must use inclined shafts. Considering the surrounding terrain, it is estimated that the flat land here is not enough."

It is said that Wu Gang already knew the other party's subtext.

That is to let the aerospace base adjust the plan as soon as possible. After all, iron ore may not be mined, but those rare metals must be mined.

He said directly to the two of them: "I will adjust the layout of the base as soon as possible to make enough room for mining."

On the other hand, Bakang shook his head: "Chief Wu, don't adjust for the time being. You should do other work first. We need to find out the general distribution area of ​​the ore seam, so that you don't have to adjust when you get it."

The reason why he stopped Wu Gang was mainly because the new mining technology has a shortcoming, that is, it is easy to form a large area of ​​holes underground, and then cause the ground to collapse.

This requires that there should be no buildings above and within one or two kilometers around the mine to avoid being affected.

At the same time, this is why new mining techniques can only use inclined shafts, not vertical shafts.

It is to avoid the construction of mining farms directly above the ore seam.

Wu Gang frowned: "Engineer Bacon, will this kind of large-scale mining affect the launch site?"

Bakang looked at the map: "Judging from the current trend of mineral veins, only a part of the seventh district has mineral veins, and there is no mineral layer on the side near the launch site. The straight-line distance between the two places is more than 3.6 kilometers, so it is not a big problem. Just control the scale when mining.”

This is actually one of the advantages of the new mining technology.

Traditional underground mining technology not only needs to dig mine tunnels, but also pays attention to exhaust ventilation and drainage, especially for ultra-deep veins. These auxiliary facilities must be in place.

Mining drainage can cause a serious problem, that is, the water level of the surrounding groundwater will be affected.

In severe cases, it may even cause the surrounding ground to subside.

The new mining technology does not require miners to go down, but through biological erosion of the formation, the formation is turned into fine particles, and then water and air are injected to turn the formation into a mud fluid, and then mud pumping equipment is used to pump out the mud in the formation. come up.

During this mud pumping process, water will continue to be injected into the mining formation on the other side to maintain the water level balance of the formation.

Of course, there is another downside to this type of mining.

That is, in karst landforms, it is necessary to pay attention to underground rivers and karst caves to prevent genetically modified bacteria from corroding mining strata accurately.

However, in ultra-deep veins, due to years of heavy pressure, the strata are basically relatively dense rock strata, and the problem of underground leakage will not be too serious.

Especially this time the newly discovered vanadium-titanium magnetite in Mount Longerang, the underground strata are quite dense.

The ultra-deep mining technology developed by Homo sapiens is actually caused by the environment.

If Homo sapiens had a large open-pit iron mine like Australia, who would mine ultra-deep veins? It’s not that there are no too prominent metal mines in the current four control areas.

Therefore, we can only find another way, while using bio-enrichment technology to extract part of the required resources from the ocean.

On the other hand, it is necessary to deeply tap the local mineral potential.

At present, non-precious metals and rare metals are only mined in open-pit mines and shallow mines around the world.

Especially in areas outside China, ore veins below 500 meters underground are usually not mined, mainly because the mining cost is too high and there is no economic value for money.

Not to mention Southeast Asia, let alone 500 meters, even below 100 meters underground is rare.

Hongshawadi's mining technology is used in various parts of Southeast Asia, and it can only mine the most superficial rich ore.

Therefore, mining deep mines has become another means for Homo sapiens to achieve resource self-sufficiency.

Regardless of the fact that no large mines have been found in the surface and shallow layers, as long as we dig down, there must be many deep and ultra-deep mineral veins that have not been discovered by humans.

Even if the technology is strong enough, there are a lot of rare metals and gold in the mantle and core.

The premise is that it can be mined.

The Homo sapiens company does not dare to think about the resources of the mantle core for the time being, but the Homo sapiens company is very thoughtful about the stratum between the surface and [-] meters underground.

At least with the new mining technology, there is no major problem in mining the veins two to 3000 meters underground, and the mining cost will not be too high.

There are two main problems restricting the promotion of new mining technologies.

One is the issue of confidentiality.

The other is exploration. After all, the cost of drilling a formation composition analysis well will increase with the increase of drilling depth.

There is no way to solve the first problem for the time being. After all, Homo sapiens does not reach the summit for a day, and these technologies must be kept secret.

But the second problem has recently been resolved.

The key to solving this problem lies in bio-erosion technology.

The specific operation is also very simple, just use a very slender ultra-hard thimble, launch it through explosives, insert it directly into the formation to form a slender channel, and then inject a certain amount of erosive bacteria into the micro channel.

This technology can drill ultra-large-diameter wells. Even ultra-deep wells can be easily drilled to a depth of two to 3000 meters with this technology, and the cost is very low.

The technology on the side of the aerospace base has not had time to be updated, but the geological and mineral exploration team has already used this new technology.

In addition, this technology can also be used with the Green Umbrella System to drill ultra-deep and super-large wells without importing large-scale drilling equipment.

After all, large-scale drilling equipment has a certain technical content, and large-scale imports are not cost-effective, and it is easy to be analyzed by the outside world as large-scale mining or oil extraction.

Chapter 181 Strategic Reserve

21, April 1.

In the Mount Longerang of Hongshawadi.

Weng Xuehai, Ba Kang and others led the exploration team. After nearly half a month of exploration, 173 drilling points were drilled, and finally the distribution, thickness and reserves of this vein were roughly determined.

"I didn't expect our mineral exploration team to fail to discover this super large mine." Ba Kang joked.

In fact, what he said was not wrong, because it was discovered by the construction team of the aerospace base, so the first contribution to this mine was on the construction team, not the exploration team.

Weng Xuehai can take it seriously: "This kind of thing is normal. Don't think about the luck of a blind cat encountering a dead mouse. We'd better keep our feet on the ground. Sooner or later, we will find other large veins."

And Wu Gang, who got the distribution map of the mine layer, finally breathed a sigh of relief, because the mine vein did not extend towards the aerospace base, and he only needed to find another place for fuel storage.

At this time, Wu Cong, who was in charge of the mining department, also hurried here.

He looked at this mountainous area, even if there was a railway passing nearby, it still made one's head bald.

"Head, how do you arrange this?" Bakang asked curiously.

Wu Cong spread his hands: "What else can I do? It must be mined. Now domestic iron ore is imported from Australia and Tianzhu. This is not a good phenomenon."

As the person in charge of the mining company, Wu Cong knows that the three major groups currently have their own steel plants, and the scale is not small, with a combined annual output of 1800 million tons of steel.

Next year will expand to 3300 million tons of steel production.

Steelmaking and ironmaking equipment can be purchased, but iron ore is a consumable material. It is not a good thing to rely on imports all year round.

Although Qingye Group successfully forced Tianzhu and Australia to sell a batch of iron ore at a low price with its new medicine.

But the other party must also have a small calculation in mind, such as expanding your production capacity at a low price first, and then fattening you up in a few years, and directly slaughtering you.

Hongshawadi and the other three control areas did not have large iron mines before. Once the supply of iron ore is choked, the profits of the steel industry will definitely be reaped by the Australians.

Iron ore suppliers in Huaguo, such as BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, and Vale, have harvested their profits because they cannot be self-sufficient in iron ore.

Wu Cong has seen part of the company's long-term plan, which requires the construction of many large-scale infrastructure projects.

In the area controlled by Homo sapiens, at least 10-3 million tons of steel will be consumed in the next 5 years.

Such a huge steel consumption, if only relying on imports, Homo sapiens can't support it no matter how rich it is.

Therefore, it is necessary to develop its own steel industry.

But the problem came back again. The steel industry needs a lot of iron ore. However, no large-scale iron ore was found in the control area before, and most of the iron ore relied on imports.

Now that the super-large iron mine of Longerang Mountain is discovered, it must be mined.

Weng Xuehai, who was present, reminded: "Mr. Wu, mining belongs to mining, but the associated mines must be handled well, which is a huge fortune."

"Of course, after I go back, I will organize a secret seminar to discuss a reasonable mining plan." Wu Cong is also very aware of the value of this mine.

According to preliminary exploration data, the total reserves of magnetite are about 8.7 million tons, with an average grade of 34.6%.

In addition, if the associated titanium, vanadium, molybdenum and rhenium are all mined and refined, about 18 tons of titanium, 11 tons of vanadium, 3 tons of molybdenum, and the most valuable 320-350 tons of rhenium can be obtained.

If all the iron ore in this mine is mined, about 3 million tons of steel can be smelted, which can basically meet the minimum requirements of the current control area.

In addition to other small mines in the control area, we can smelt another 1 million tons of steel if we put together things together.

That is to say, with the vanadium-titanium magnetite of Mount Longerang, Homo sapiens basically does not need to worry about the threat of international iron ore suppliers.

Now, taking advantage of the cheap international iron ore prices, large quantities of iron ore have to be imported unscrupulously.

Longerang Mountain vanadium-titanium magnetite will definitely not be mined on a large scale in the early stage, but infrastructure and supporting facilities must be built to prepare for future expansion of production capacity at any time.

As long as there are sufficient iron ore reserves in hand, international iron ore suppliers are just a group of paper tigers.

In fact, the iron mines in various places in Hongshawadi have been sealed up and strategic reserves have been established.

In terms of planning for a rainy day, Sapiens Corporation attaches great importance to it.