Shale Miner

Working as a Shale Miner offers many opportunities for challenging yet fulfilling work. You can choose to operate heavy machinery, collect samples, set up dynamite blasts, build structural supports, or move material from one location to another.

Whatever your preference, being a Shale Miner requires you to drive to the worksite each day. With your water bottle and lunchbox in hand, you head underground or over to the quarry to begin work. The tools of today’s Shale Miners have evolved from the pickax and shovels of days gone by. Now, heavy machinery slices, shaves, hammers, cuts, and shears shale from the walls of the mine.

You’re commonly in charge of one or more machines, so you pay special attention to safety. Whether you scrape shale off the wall, scoop it into mine carts, or handle it once it moves down the conveyor belt, you wear the proper equipment, watch out for other Miners, and keep a lookout for any signs of a cave-in.

While powerful enough to get the job done, these machines take experience to control. But that’s not a problem for you because you know how to monitor the lights, gauges, and levers that indicate a problem. You also make sure the equipment is running smoothly, identify signs of strain or binding, move equipment from one area to another, grease moving parts, perform other maintenance tasks, and make basic repairs as needed.

In addition to the equipment, you might also set and detonate explosives, or test air or shale quality.