Regional geology.
Areas are mostly covered by soil or laterite / bauxite capping. The low plateau consists of rocks of Achaean age. These include mica schist and quartzites, calc silicate rocks, amphibolites, granite and granite gneiss, pegmatite’s and quartz veins. Immediately overlying the Achaeans with an unconformity occur over rocks of Gondwana age consisting of coarse ferruginous sandstone and conglomerate. The Gondwana’s are overlain by Lameta with an unconformity. The Lameta starts with conglomerate at the base and other rock units include ferruginous grits, sometimes with shaly & clayey partings and calcareous grits. Overlying the Lameta occur almost horizontal Deccan Trap basalts which are massive, dark grey, hard and compact, finally overlying this trap rock occurs laterite with lithomarge clays and weathered basalts in between.

Local Geology.
The bauxite occurs in lensoid form within the laterite horizon which comprises various recognizable lithologic units.

The zone of lithomarge is quite distinctive and well defined and forms the lowest horizon of the laterite profile. It occurs just above the trap and thus separates it at few places in deep nalla beds and also along the scarps. The lithomarge is quite soft and plastic in nature. The average thickness of this zone is varies from 1.5 to 3.5 m.

The bauxite occurs in lensoid forms in laterite profile, generally below soil and pisolitic laterite. The bauxite can be put in ........

All mining and transportation at the mine are undertaken by contractors.

The bauxite deposit of Mainpat Bauxite mines is situated over the plateau and the surface terrain is generally flat.

As the Bauxite deposit is found in shallow depth ranging from 0.40-10.0 meter, the method of mining of Bauxite is mechanized opencast mining, crushing, sizing, and sorting, by using excavator of 1- 5 Cum bucket size, dumper of 15-25 tons capacity, water sprinkler, blast hole drill machine, 100 mm dia, dozer, grader, crusher, screens and belt conveyor etc.

The over burden is top soil & soft laterite of 0 to 3.00 meters thickness after which there is a hard overburden of thickness varying from 0 to 5.70 meters. The thickness of ore zone is 0.40 m to 4 m. In general working is of shallow depth of avg. 4 to 5 m (maximum 10 m).

The general practice is to scrap the top soil separately by dozer or excavator dumper combination and use it for directly spreading over already backfilled compacted area. Drilling and blasting is practiced in hard OB benches and ore benches. Excavation is done by excavator dumper combination.

Since the deposits are strata-bound irregular and bouldery in nature, bauxite needs to be separated from laterite and murrum. It is proposed to mechanically crush and screen the ore so as to obtain desired grade bauxite with acceptable silica content. The backfilling is done in same sequence as it is found in the nature, i.e. ........

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