An overview of the Colombian economy is presented and mining is made special between 2000 and 2016. The most important aspects of Colombian mining production are presented and the sector is characterized in terms of extractive industry and environmental components. It presents an historical evolution of the mining sector in terms of production and prices and presents a global picture of mining income, employment generation, reserves of the most important minerals, as well as foreign direct investment in mining. Finally, data on exports of the most important minerals produced in Colombia are presented.

Analysis of mineral resources base located in offshore zone and ocean space is an important aspect of development of industrial and economic potential. The issues of control over the Earth’s mineral resources as one of the most important components of geopolitical leadership are considered. It is shown that mineral resources of shelf zone, continental slope, and ocean floor are of the greatest interest from the viewpoint of possible commercial development. Data on the major oil and natural gas fields, deep-sea deposits of polymetallic sulfides, ferromanganese nodules, and cobalt-manganese crusts are analyzed. The mechanisms of state management in the field of using the resources of World Ocean and developing marine mining industry in Russia are substantiated.

Geological-and-metallurgical mapping is carried out during operational exploration of a deposit for controlling grade of ore fed for processing. The paper is devoted to studying the main approaches to metallurgical assessment of ore deposits based on the methods of geological-and-metallurgical mapping and modeling. The relevance and necessity of conducting geological-and-metallurgical research programs at different stages of deposit exploration was confirmed. The main low-volume sample studying methods for determining key parameters of ores that directly affect on the efficiency of each stage of ore processing for assessing spatial variability of the parameters are shown. The proposed approach to geological-and-metallurgical modeling allows solving a number of problems, including: assessing ores across the entire range of knowledge (but not solely based on useful component grades); understanding the ore material composition and grade variability; estimating ore reserves with differentiation by ore type and grade. 

Studies of chemical zoning of ore bodies for all ore types of "Zapolyarnoe" sulfide copper-nickel deposit were carried out. Sorting of samples by ore type was performed. The results allowed developing regression mathematical models for all the ore types, which determine the dependences of the ore copper and cobalt grades on nickel grade. It was revealed that the overall copper/nickel ratio in the ore body is predominantly governed by that in finely-disseminated ores, while the overall cobalt/nickel ratio is mainly determined by that in densely-impregnated and breccia ores. The relationships between nickel, copper, and cobalt in ores change with changing the ore nickel grade. The study findings will facilitate correct estimating balance reserves of extraction blocks and planning monthly, quarterly, and annual targets for the metal production.

The issue of predicting seismic impact of commercial blasting on production infrastructure is of great importance in open cast mining. In this case, the interest to this problem is determined by the need to ensure both safety and efficiency of mining in the vicinity of protected facilities of PJSC Holding Company Yakutugol, affected by mining operations at the Neryungrinsky open-cast coal mine.

The performed experimental studies showed that natural factors affect the seismic effect intensity, but are not decisive. Nevertheless, such natural factors as water content, permafrost and seasonal frozen rocks should be taken into account when designing drilling and blasting operations.
 The ground vibration velocity at the monitoring points depends primarily on the explosive charge weight being maximum in the group, and the hypocentral distance, i.e. the distance from the place (area) inside the block, where rock rupturing and fracturing begin, seismic waves arise at blasting and propagate to the recording point, as well as the single blast scale.

In this regard, to ensure confidence and reliability of predicting blasting seismic action on protected facilities for increasing efficiency of drilling and blasting operations in the Neryungrinsky open-cast coal mine, a technique should be developed based on the regularities linking seismic motions during blasting with the blasting characteristics and the hypocentral distance. The dependence obtained from the findings of the experimental studies was implemented in the algorithm when developing the application program "SeismPrognoz", which allows to quickly calculate the maximum vectorial velocity of ground displacement, the explosive charge maximum weight in the group, the safe distance, the total explosive charge weight, and use the information obtained for calculating blasting pattern for a particular block.

The problems of storing wastes of chemical industry are aggravated year by year due to, on the one hand, increasing capacities of chemical enterprises and, on the other hand, strengthening of requirements for environmental protection and sustainable land use. The results of long-term geodetic studies during the formation of phosphogypsum dump of the Balakovo branch of Apatit JSC in the Saratov Region, which enabled studying the laws of development of deformation processes, caused by simultaneous manifestation of landslide displacements and subsidence of the dump surface, are presented. The reasons, mechanism, dynamics, and conditions of landslide formation on phosphogypsum dumps are considered, including the influence of the technogenic aquifer on bearing capacity of the structure base ground. The data of laboratory studies of phosphogypsum characterize it as highly compressible material with pronounced rheological properties, which predetermines the manifestation of large-scale and long-term subsidence deformations on phosphogypsum dumps. The information presented in the paper can be useful for assessing stability of phosphogypsum dumps and determining their maximum capacity.

For studying the mechanism of frozen sandy-clayey rock disintegration, natural electric fields (EP) arising in being frozen wet rocks due to electric potential difference at the boundary between frozen and thawed rocks, were investigated. The performed experiments showed that the frozen sandy-clayey rock disintegration in aqueous media is accompanied by generation and changing of natural electric fields in the specimen. In our opinion, the electric field generation is connected with filtration potentials arising as a result of water penetration through pores and fractures into the rock specimen. The eigenpolarization potential measurements were carried out by the potential gradient method using two electrodes frozen into the specimen. As a result, it was proved that the method of measuring the eigenpolarization electric potential difference between two points of a rock specimen has the advantage that it not only indirectly characterizes temperature change in the specimen, but additionally provides information on the process electrokinetics, the dynamics of changes in electrical resistance of the rock between the electrodes, and polarity of different volumes of the rock specimen. In addition, this method allows studying the dynamics of frozen rock thawing, and also confirms the filtration mechanism of frozen rock disintegration in aqueous media.

In the process of ore beneficiation, applying open control loop systems using ore quality as input parameter, proves very effective. To determine the ore quality, on-line analysis of its material and mineralogical composition, impregnation of valuable components is carried out. Based on the analysis results, ore streams are formed at the processing plant, and effective processing conditions are selected. Modern systems of visual metering analysis of ore create the basis for efficient automated control of beneficiation processes, based on the principle of advanced control of ore grade. To improve the accuracy of determining the ore mineral composition, a special installation has been developed, which provides cleaning of ore from slurry. The installation enables achieving high accuracy of the ore mineralogical composition analysis. Tests of the ore grade visual metering analysis system, carried out using copper-molybdenum ores of the Erdenet GOK, have shown high reliability and efficiency of the system.