Geology

Underground Mine Closure

As with ore mining operations it is necessary to leave an underground mine in a socially responsible state when mining ceases because underground mining has a smaller foot print in surface mining this is generally a less onerous task. However, there are still a number of important issues that must be dealt with and some … Read more

Underground Mining

In this module, I’ll take you through the key aspects related to underground mining activities. In this module, we will look at economic considerations in regard to underground mining, geological conditions suited to underground mining, the different operational and technical approaches using underground mining and important operational considerations including roof support, ventilation, safety, water management … Read more

Safety in Open Pit Mining

Welcome back to the surface mining model. In the previous topic, we learned about different types of surface mining operations, about equipment, about different methods that are commonly used to extract coal or different ore deposits. It’s not difficult to understand that mining is one of the most dangerous working environments in the world and … Read more

Open Pit Mining Operations

The previous topic has established that surface mining operations include several main activities that include the ore extraction or mine of the material, the overburden excavation and removal, the overburden transport, the waste disposal, the low grade material pile and transport for future treatments or separated process. The ore extraction and the material handling process … Read more

Open Pit Slope Design & Stability

In the concept of mining a deposit, mining operations should be planned and organized in order to maximize the productivity. Slope stability issues directly affect the productivity. It’s for these reasons that they need to be addressed with theoretical and technical expertise. And the realization of a surface mine, 3 fundamental processes should be taken … Read more

Surface Open-pit Mining

First of all let’s define what we mean with surface mining. Surface mining means the extraction of mineral deposits or coal reserves or stones of different kinds that are outcropping the earth’s surface or located at shallow depth from it. The economic depth for surface mining can range from 100 metres to 1 kilometre and … Read more

Types of Rock Failure

Rock mass failure does not always involves discontinuities. There are cases, especially for excavations, like the tunnel you see on this photo where the stress simply exceeds the strength of the rock metrics, and, hence, this later can fail. We have seen, in a previous topic, that creating an opening in a rock mass modifies … Read more

Rock Joint Failure

In previous topics, we have seen that discontinuities constitutes as a weakness in the rock mass. In fact, failure of a slope, for example, is often triggered by the failure of discontinuities in triggering block instability. These can occur on natural or man-made slopes. This figure illustrates two possible failure scenarios involving failure of discontinuities. … Read more

Ground Rock Stress Distribution

In previous topics, we’ve discussed strengths of materials because failure typically occurs when stresses exceed the strengths, it is important to know the stress distribution in a ground close to an opening, for example. This will be the topic of this module, but first, let’s consider vertical stress. To some extent, this represents at a … Read more

Rock Mass Classification – Rock Mass System

For most rock engineering projects, it is required to characterise not only the intact rock, but also the rock mass as a whole, and this in terms of strength and deformability. Indeed we said, in a previous topic, that the presence of discontinuities tend to confer to the rock mass lower strengths and higher deformability. … Read more