Seismic Risk Management practices in metalliferous mines

Abstract

The management of seismic risks in metalliferous mines operating in developed mining countries such as Australia, Canada, Chile and Sweden has been very successful during the last decade. The occurrence and magnitude of large seismic events in deep mines has continued to increase with mining reaching deeper horizons, yet, injuries and fatalities due to rockbursts remain very rare in these countries. Although there are many common practices used to manage seismic risks in mines, there is no recognised process to do so. In 2017, Newcrest Mining Ltd, in collaboration with the Australian Centre for Geomechanics (ACG), undertook a benchmarking campaign to document the different seismic risk management practices currently implemented in mines which are considered leaders in this area. Data was gathered from 16 mines operating in five countries, experiencing different degrees of seismicity. Analysis of the data from the benchmarking study led to a better understanding of seismic risk management practices applied in the industry. One of the important outcomes of this project was the development of a flowchart describing in detail a generic seismic risk management process. The process is broken into four different layers of activities: data collection, seismic response to mining, control measures, and seismic risk assessment. Within each layer of activity, there are a number of components, and within each component, there are a number of practices, which have been benchmarked and are discussed in this paper. In addition to providing a road map for managing seismicity in underground metalliferous mines, this work enables users to assess their own practices against standard and advanced practices in the management of seismic risks. A full description of the seismic risk management process is available to the mining industry at https://acg.uwa.edu.au/srmp.