Maptek Vulcan has been a tremendous contribution to the career of Anglo American Coal Survey Coordinator Peter McDonald.
Having worked at 12 coal mines over the past 34 years, Peter says those running Vulcan for engineering, geology and surveying have a far more productive technical services department.
‘I started working at Collinsville Coal Mine in 1987. At the time most of our surveying was done with pen and paper. Volumes were calculated with hand-drawn cross sections,’ he says.
‘Then in 1988 Vulcan arrived! Programmers and trainers Greg Christie and Lynne Banwell drove up from Sydney to deliver Vulcan to us on magnetic tape. This pair was amazing. They set about adjusting the program to our needs, and getting us up to speed on our new IBM workstations.’
‘We soon progressed to the longer lasting Silicon Graphics workstations. Greg and Lynne came up to visit several times in the next few years, training and loading new versions. Their contribution to our success was immense.’
‘One of my jobs was to digitise old underground workings on to a computer to load into Vulcan. To be able to see all these plans on a single computer screen, and zoom in and out, was just spectacular!’
Peter says Vulcan has progressed over the years and continues to be the backbone of many technical services teams in Queensland’s Bowen Basin.