bucket-ladder dredge

…dredging fleets has been the bucket-ladder dredge, operating a continually moving chain of open-ended shovels or scoops. At the bottom of the ladder the scoops are pushed into the face of the material and empty themselves as they turn over at the top, the material falling into chutes that divert…

Being a continuous process, bucket-ladder dredging can produce at high rates, depending on bucket size, power, and digging conditions. Dredges of this type have been used successfully all over the world for mining gold, tin, and platinum placers as well as diamond deposits. Their offshore use has been limited…

In particular, bucket-ladder dredging, which is characterized by a continuous chain of buckets that rotate around a rigid adjustable frame called the ladder, is used worldwide. A later method known as paddock dredging allows placer deposits to be mined even when they are not adjacent to a…

The bucket-ladder, or bucket-line, dredge has been the traditional placer-mining tool, and it is still the most flexible method for dredging under varying conditions. It consists of a single hull supporting an excavating and lifting mechanism, beneficiation circuits, and waste-disposal systems. The excavation equipment consists of…

Bucket dredgers for major operations are supplemented by suction, or grab, dredgers for localized work. Hopper barges are required for transporting dredged materials to disposal sites, which should be numerous enough to minimize the transporting period, so that the dredger remains fully operational with a…