A bushwalker does maths

“Coal forms in stratified deposits often called layer cake geology, and as miners, removing those layers is how we extract coal from the ground. We also use mathematics in the process”, says Jane Munro in a presentation at the Maths Club (Cudgegong Valley Mathematics) on Wednesday 8th July in Club Mudgee. Jane is a senior geologist at Moolarben Mine (Yan Coal) and was also recently elected as the president of the Mudgee Bushwalking Club as bushwalking is one of her pastime.

Jane enjoys using maths at work. Whilst she studied maths at university, in her daily tasks, Jane often uses the maths she learned at high school which involves geometry, trigonometry and calculus.

“Coal deposits are quite uniform, like a layer cake. Coal is formed from vegetation buried and compressed over 250 million years”, says Jane. Exploring these deposits involves drilling which provide numerical data of the characteristics of the deposit, spatial locality and variations e.g. depth, thickness and ash contents. Analysing the numerical data inevitably uses mathematics, there is no other way. The modelling tools are also developed using mathematical formula – these tools assist in predicting and validating a number of key factors and decision making e.g. cost, time, price and revenue.

Jane’s presentation has been an eye opening for the Mudgee maths enthusiasts who attended the evening. On this occasion, Jane gave a number of simple challenges to poke the minds of the crowd, for example, how many bags of cements required to grout the casing on a borehole for some given dimensions; a drill core intersecting a 15 metres of coal at a (steeper) given angle, is it worth pursuing the site further for a given set of parameters? And finally, a question that involves calculus where the coal deposits are a roll shape. The estimation requires calculating area under two polynomials.

There is no doubt that mathematics is used by geologists and mine engineers, especially in geological modelling and plotting contour map of a set of points which contains data values such as ash contents, sulfur and caloric value of the deposit. A typical distance weighting method such as inverse square distance between points is a vital part of computer modelling.

Another interesting thing about the coal seam is that the materials are deposited in bands (plies) of varying ash contents. Deciding on the combinations to target different markets such as Korea and Japan, is of course a familiar problem for mathematicians.

The attendees are most impressed with the technical details and Jane’s expertise. We have learned more knowledge from the presentation while having fun.

There you have it, a geologist and  bushwalker does her maths in style!

Maths enthusiasts

Feedback from the initial meeting

Despite of the rainy day, people with various perspective and profession attended the meeting.

Prof. Galloway presented his work in at a general level, with some information about data presentation using graph (nodes and links), examples and knock-on effect analysis (cybernetics).

Some key points/feedback are:

1. An easy program at general community level to be conducted monthly, whereby we have a guest speaker or one of our member speak about a particular topic about or relating to mathematics. For example, how mathematics is applied at work/everyday life, history of various aspects of mathematics, the life and work of famous mathematicians and so forth.
2. Group activities/forum for various school levels, providing learning outside school for students who need assistance.
3. Maths trivia

  Benefits to community:

• Change the lives of people from various socio economic environment  by improving their children numeracy and analytical skills via the group forum.
• Change perception about mathematics. We have seen many young people being swayed away from learning mathematics due to the environment (family/friends/etc) as a kind of un-needed skills.

Inaugural Meeting