Abstract
The Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 delegated to the Bureau of Mines a yearly program of health inspections. Specifically, the Bureau is required to make four respirable dust health inspections per year. The Act, however, permits the operator's sampling program to be substituted for two of the Bureau's health inspections. Samples of coal mine respirable dust are collected by Bureau of Mines inspectors. Samples collected are weighed to determine dust concentration, then sent to the Dust Group, Pittsburgh Technical Support Center at the Bureau of Mines to be analyzed for ash and quartz content. The number of samples to be analyzed required staffing a laboratory for processing the coal mine respirable dust. This paper describes the processing of respirable coal mine dust from initial receipt of samples to forwarding of analytical data to the Bureau of Mines computer center at Denver, Colorado. Included in the article is a summary of analytical data.