INTEGRATING OF GEORADAR ANS SEISMIC STUDIES OF THE TAILINGS DAM

Abstract

Identification of water-saturated zones in the tailings dams is an actual scientific and practical task in terms of providing, first of all, their mechanical strength and filtration stability. The prevention of accidents in tailings is complicated by the circumstance that the processes of increased filtration, appearing and developing in the dam body, are not fixed on the initial stages by visual and traditional methods. Insufficiency, from the point of view of data completeness, of networks of piezometric boreholes on tailings dams does not allow solving the tasks of necessary information hydrological support. At the same time, the use of active- sounding geophysical study methods allows obtaining sufficiently detailed information about the peculiarities of the internal structure of the tailings dam and the degree of water saturation of the composing soils. A reasoned choice of geophysical methods, as well as their combination, allows increasing the level and reliability of obtained data at subsurface studies. The paper presents the results of in-situ experiments on the study of the tailings dam of the mining enterprise by different in nature wave GPR (georadar) and seismic methods. A comparative analysis of the conducted studies has allowed clarifying the internal structure and assessing the dam’s condition, paying special attention to the identification of local zones of increased water saturation and filtration. Based on the calculated correlation coefficient of electromagnetic and seismic wave velocity values, it was revealed that synchronization of geophysical surveys allows significantly increasing the reliability of in-situ determinations, as well as obtaining more reliable data. The results of the studies are the basis for predicting the most vulnerable places (zones) of a bulk ground hydraulic facility, as well as the localization of water-saturated areas in the body of the ground structures with greater reliability and performance.