Day 0Cash 0Ore 0 tAir 0Sump 0 m³Missions 0/3FPS 0

Drag to orbit, wheel or pinch to zoom. Gold shows only where you have drilled or dug: the vein is hidden until then. Mechanical digging only (hydraulic breaker); no blasting is simulated.

Vein to Cart: A Cutaway Mine Operations Lab

Find a hidden ore vein with boreholes, dig to it, keep the air fresh and the water pumped out, haul the ore to the shaft and make the ledger positive.

Plan map (click: set borehole position or level)

Brown shades = your estimate from boreholes (inverse-distance). Dots = assays. Bars = drifts dug, dark line = stope.

Exploration

Work

Readouts

Cash (credits)

Last borehole assay (g/t vs depth)

Missions

Independent numerical checks

Controls

Drag / one finger: orbit; wheel / pinch: zoom. Click the plan map to move the borehole position (and select a level).
Drill a few boreholes first: each shows the assay at every metre of depth and reveals the vein along its line. Then choose a level and drive the drift; once it has crossed the vein you can switch to Stope vein to follow it up-dip.
Size the fan and pump: too little air slows the crew, too little pumping floods the workings. The gradient and number of carts decide how much the locomotive can haul.

The science

Geology. A tabular vein dips at 28° through banded host rock. Along a level the drift meets it over a length of thickness/tan 28°. The hidden grade field is smooth along strike with a separate rich pocket; boreholes sample it (±8 % assay error) and the map interpolates with inverse-distance weighting ĝ = Σ w_i g_i / Σ w_i, w = 1/r² (exact at a sample, unknown far from all samples).

Ventilation. Atkinson's law p = R Q², R = k L P / A³ (duct k = 0.004 kg/m³, P = 2.51 m, A = 0.503 m²). A fan has the curve p = p₀(1 − (Q/Q_max)²); the operating point is where the two meet: Q = √(p₀ / (R + p₀/Q_max²)). Needed air: 0.1 m³/s per person + 2 m³/s for dust and heat at the face. Crew productivity scales with min(1, Q/Q_req).

Drainage. Steady radial inflow to a long drift below the water table (Thiem): q' = 2πKH / ln(R₀/r) per metre (K = 3×10⁻⁶ m/s, H = depth below the table at 5 m). A pump removes its capacity; excess fills a 600 m³ sump, and a full sump floods the workings and stops digging. Pump power P = ρ g Q H / η.

Haulage. A loaded cart (0.6 t + 1.2 t) needs F = m g (μ_r cos θ + sin θ), μ_r = 0.02. The 3 t locomotive can pull at most μ_a m_loco g (adhesion 0.2), so the number of carts falls quickly with the gradient. Trips per shift follow from the cycle time 2L/v + loading.

Economics. Revenue = ore tonnes × grade × recovery (0.9) × price (25 credits/g, a model value); material below the cut-off grade is waste. Costs: wages, digging, electricity, equipment rent. Credits are a game unit, not money.

Simplifications. A 2-D section drawn as a cutaway (tunnel interiors are drawn wider than a real 2.4 m drift), constant digging rates, no rock-mass failure or blasting is simulated (this lab is about logistics, not safety engineering), no real mine design. Models built with Blender, scene by Three.js.