Rock Engineering 2017

SRK News | Issue 54 : Rock Engineering and Slope Stability A4 | Letter Over the years, four programs of rock stress measurement and interpretation have been completed at the Ok Tedi Mine in Papua New Guinea, each providing different interpretations of the in situ field stresses. Measurements were taken...

SRK News | Issue 54 : Rock Engineering and Slope Stability A4 | Letter This case study details how geotechnical properties were linked to geology alteration types. This allowed SRK to use the geology database to determine spatial distribution of zones of very weak and extremely weak rock. Channel iron...

SRK News | Issue 54 : Rock Engineering and Slope Stability A4 | Letter The objective of installing ground support is to mitigate the risk of injuries and costs associated with rehabilitating excavation damage and associated production downtime. It follows that the greater the likelihood of stress damage or rockfalls,...

SRK News | Issue 54 : Rock Engineering and Slope Stability A4 | Letter For any mining geotechnical study, an understanding of the characteristics of the rock mass within which an underground or open pit mine will be excavated is essential. The condition of the rock mass will determine, for...

SRK News | Issue 54 : Rock Engineering and Slope Stability A4 | Letter Figure 2: Interaction of multiple wedges For the design of a pit wall, several combinations of bench height, bench face angle and berm width may be used to satisfy stability criteria. The bench face angle and...

SRK News | Issue 54 : Rock Engineering and Slope Stability A4 | Letter SRK conducted a numerical stress analysis to evaluate sill pillar stability for Tahoe Resources’ Escobal Mine located in southeast Guatemala. The Escobal mine uses LHOS methods to extract 4,500 tpd of high-grade silver ore. The mineralisation...

SRK News | Issue 54 : Rock Engineering and Slope Stability A4 | Letter The Cerro Lindo Mine is the largest underground mine in Peru, currently mining more than 20,000 tonnes/ day. The sublevel stoping method was used with paste backfill, which had been experiencing overexcavation issues at the hangingwall...

SRK News | Issue 54 : Rock Engineering and Slope Stability A4 | Letter The Collahuasi Mine is the world’s third largest copper mine with one of the largest deposits of copper mineral resources. It is located in Chile’s Tarapaca region, 4,400 metres above sea level. Since 2013, SRK has...

SRK News | Issue 54 : Rock Engineering and Slope Stability A4 | Letter All mining excavations should have an appropriate geotechnical design that takes into account the rock mass structure. The level of geotechnical investigation and design required will be governed by the geological and geotechnical complexity of the...

SRK News | Issue 54 : Rock Engineering and Slope Stability A4 | Letter Modern photogrammetry surveys can produce highly detailed 3D models of a rock slope. Using a high end DSLR camera with a long focal length telephoto lens, we can construct a model of an open pit slope...

SRK News | Issue 54 : Rock Engineering and Slope Stability A4 | Letter The SRK Vancouver Rock Mechanics team has been working at Cameco’s underground Cigar Lake Uranium Mine providing advanced multidisciplinary geotechnical modelling since the summer of 2015. SRK conducted geotechnical and structural geology reviews, which led to...

SRK News | Issue 54 : Rock Engineering and Slope Stability A4 | Letter The Hollinger Open Pit, one of Goldcorp’s Porcupine Gold Mines, is situated in the gold-mining City of Timmins, in northern Ontario, Canada. The Porcupine Camp, located above a sequence of Archean basaltic volcanic rocks, led to...

SRK News | Issue 54 : Rock Engineering and Slope Stability A4 | Letter The requirement to optimise excavation design and minimise waste stripping is becoming more critical in pit engineering as pits deepen and economics become tighter. Representative structural data is critical when optimising pit slope angles and in...