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Seismic Risk Management in underground hard rock mines is a very important and complex task. With the support of Newcrest Mining Limited (Newcrest), the Australian Centre for Geomechanics (ACG) undertook a survey to obtain a cross-section of the seismic risk management practices used in underground hard rock mines around the world. The results of this survey were compiled and are made available through this website.

This website provides an overview of what is being done - it is by no means an indication of what should be done.

As our methods and our understanding of mining-induced seismicity improve, so also will our risk management practices. The content of this website will be updated in future. This is just the start!

Feel free to write us an e-mail if you would like to contribute material, share ideas or tell us about an error

Seismic Risk Management Practices

Introduction

This project is the result of a collaboration between the ACG and Newcrest Mining Limited to define best practices in managing seismic risks in underground mines. A benchmarking campaign was conducted to assess the seismic risk management practices at 16 underground mining operations each experiencing different levels of seismicity. The following mines were visited by Craig Jones, Geoffrey Newcombe, David Cuello and Yves Potvin:

• Agnico Eagle Laronde Mine (Canada)
• Glencore Kidd Mine (Canada)
• Glencore Nickel Rim (Canada)
• Codelco El Teniente Mine (Chile)

Face to face interviews were conducted with site personnel of the following operations:

• Independence Group Long-Victor Mine (Australia)
• KCGM Mount Charlotte Mine (Australia)
• Goldfields South Deep Mine (South Africa)
• Goldfields Hamlet Mine (Australia)
• Newcrest Telfer Mine (Australia)
• Glencore Ernest Henry Mine (Australia)
• Northern Star Kanowna Belle Mine (Australia)

Telephone/Skype interviews were conducted with personnel from the following operations:

• Newcrest Cadia (Australia)
• CMOC Northparkes Mine (Australia)
• MMG Rosebery Mine (Australia)
• Iamgold Westwood Mine (Canada)
• LKAB Kiruna Mine (Sweden)

To supplement the data collected during the interviews, a separate survey was distributed to mXrap sponsors asking how frequently various seismic analysis techniques were used onsite. There were 30 responses to the seismic analysis survey from a variety of operations around the world and the results will be discussed in the relevant sections below.

Keeping in mind that the goal of the project was to define “best practices” in managing seismic hazard, it is also important to realise that best practice at a mine site is necessarily a function of the intensity of the seismic problem at that site. As such, it is not always necessary nor “best practice” for mines experiencing low seismic hazard to implement extensive and advanced seismological analyses. Hence low, medium and severe seismic hazard will call for different “best practices”.

To circumvent this issue, in this benchmarking report, we will refer to basic and advanced practices. Basic practices indicates approaches commonly used at most mine sites. Advanced practices involve techniques that are uncommon due to:

• requiring personnel with a high skill base; and
• being labour/computing/time intensive.

A seismic risk management process flowchart (Figure 1) has been developed and verified during the benchmarking exercise. The process has four major activities, each represented by a coloured area in the flowchart:

• Data collection (purple)
• Seismic response to mining (green)
• Control measures (blue)
• Seismic risk assessment (orange)

Within each activity, there are a number of components, represented by boxes in the flowchart. Within each box, a number of practices have been benchmarked and will be discussed in terms of being a “basic” or an “advanced” practice.