The deposit has a minimum silica (SiO2) content of 98%. The controlling attributes are grain crush strength and size distribution. All areas of the deposit are characterized by clean, low-clay content sand in windblown dunes. In many areas, a more clayey sand lies beneath the clean sand. In all cases the sand is unconsolidated.

The reserves at Lamesa contain windblown dune sand lying above ancient dunes of clayey sand, all Quaternary in age.

The Lamesa site is a silica sand production facility in the West Texas Permian Oil Basin region. The Lamesa site is comprised of a large, mechanized surface mining operation that supplies raw ore to a fully automated, state-of-the-art processing plant.

A contractor is employed to mine the sand using front-end loaders and articulating haul trucks.

The ore deposit at the Lamesa site sits at the surface, making it very amenable to open pit, mechanized mining methods utilizing heavy mobile mining equipment. At the mine, the unconsolidated sand is extracted directly from the open pit wall / mining face by front-end loader or by excavator and loaded into 40-ton or 60-ton articulated haul trucks. A fleet of haul trucks then delivers the mined sand ore to the processing plant.

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