The headframe at Frank Smith mine in South Africa stands above the vertical access shaft to underground workings, and controls the cable and cars moving in the shaft.
Hard rock is drilled and blasted with explosives so the broken material can be removed.
When deep, rich ore warrants it, the mining goes underground with vertical shafts descending to horizontal drifts, or passageways that enter the pipe. In bedrock adjacent to the pipe, shafts are sunk and drifts are tunneled into the pipe. The highly mechanized and efficient method known as block caving is shown in the adjacent model. The bench steps are about 20 m high. Broken kimberlite falls through the draw points and is scraped out of the tunnel with a drag or scraper bucket attached to a cable and winch, working much like a clothes line on a pulley.