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Rock Engineering & Slope Stability - Global Perspectives

Increasing Complexity Raises Bar for Rock Engineering

Edward Saunders, William Joughin, Diane Walker

With the world’s most accessible mineral deposits already discovered and developed, extraction conditions are becoming progressively more difficult – making rock engineering more demanding.

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Uncertain Failure Limits in an Uncertain Rock Mass

In June of 2020, the geomechanics group in Denver, Colorado, was contacted by a subsidiary of Waterton Global Resources to assess the stability of a slope at an open pit copper mine in North America.

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Economic Risk Evaluation at the Jwaneng Mine

Luis-Fernando Contreras, Des Mossop, Tafadzwa Chindedza

The Jwaneng diamond mine located in the Republic of Botswana is an open pit mine that has been in operation since 1982.

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Keeping Abreast of New Technologies

Andy Thomas, Jarek Jakubec

SRK continues to be involved with new technologies in the field of geotechnical engineering and rock mechanics for underground and open pit mining.

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DENNIS LAUBSCHER, Friend, Colleague and Mentor

Jarek Jakubec

Described as pioneer of block caving and a legend of the mining industry, Dennis Laubscher, the world’s foremost authority on block cave mining, died on 3 February at the age of 91.

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Practical Challenges Related to Ground Support Implementation and Installation

Nico Viljoen

Ground support forms an integral part of underground mines to maintain stable excavations, sustain productivity, and most importantly, provide a safe working environment

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Application of Discrete Fracture Network to Block Caving Fragmentation: A Hybrid Approach

SRK News

Block caving is the most cost effective and productive underground mining method for massive ore bodies.

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Modeling a Ground Control Problem – The Solution Was Not More Bolts!

The Goderich Salt Mine, located on the shoreline of Lake Huron in Ontario, Canada, has been in operation for more than 60 years.

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Operational Support for Continuance of Mining after a Large-Scale Instability

Ian de Bruyn

After rainfall, a deep open pit in Western Australia experienced a large-scale instability which hampered access to the pit and restricted mining activity.

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Slope Design at El Romeral Pit, Chile

Esteban Hormazábal, Pedro Crignola

SRK Chile’s rock mechanics team completed a study of the slope design at the El Romeral pit located 463 km north of Santiago.

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Implementation of Mine Strategy Driven by Slope Depressurisation

Mark Raynor, Edward Saunders, Bruce Murphy

Successful mine plan execution at operations with high rainfall and deep and irregular saprolite profiles requires strong geotechnical, hydrogeological and hydrology design integration.

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The Unseen: A Case Study of Innovative Methods for Investigating Historical Mine Workings

Tim Coleman, Alida Hartzenberg

Canadian mining operations have long been key contributors to economic vitality. This has resulted in Canada standing at the forefront of implementing best practices that relate to mine closure projects.

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Design of Water Barrier Pillars and High-Pressure Concrete Water Plugs for Mine Closure

William Joughin, Alejandro Verri

Many South African gold mines have reached the end of their life and have closed or are in the process of closing.

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Cascabel Project

Max Brown, Esteban Hormazábal, Andrea Russo, James Bellin

The Cascabel Project is a copper-gold porphyry deposit located in northern Ecuador.

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Quantification of the Intact Geological Strength Index for Rock Masses in a Hypogene Environment

Andrea Russo, Esteban Hormazábal

The Geological Strength Index (GSI) was introduced as an empirical tool to scale the intact rock properties, from samples to a rock mass scale.

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Fault Modelling for Rock Mass Studies in the Deep Mill Level Zone (DMLZ) Mine of PT. Freeport Indonesia

Wayne Barnett

SRK undertook fault modelling for rock mass studies in the Deep Mill Level Zone (DMLZ) mine owned by PT Freeport Indonesia in Papua, Indonesia.

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Regulation of Open Pit Slope Stability in Russia

Victor Spirin

SRK Moscow is involved in the development and updating of the Russian Rules for the Stability of Benches of Slopes of Open Pits and Waste Dumps (Rules).

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Underground Design and Numerical Modelling

Iñaki Garcia

SRK carried out a feasibility level geotechnical design for an underground and open pit copper project in southern Morocco.

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Operational Geotechnical Assistance

Robert Armstrong

In many engineering projects, the design engineer forms an integral part of the construction team.

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Challenges Encountered in Pit Slope Designs in Anisotropic Bedded Rock Masses

Jaya Mylvaganam

Open pit slope design in the bedded units encountered in the iron ore pits of Australia’s Pilbara region is challenging in many aspects.

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Remote Geotechnical Analysis: Pit Performance and Optimisation

Max Brown, Chris Mears

SRK undertook a a remote review or pit slope performance and performed design updates for three gold mines in the Middle East.

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Underhand Blasthole Stoping – Re-Sill Mining

Bruce Murphy, Adrienne Joaquim

A narrow-vein gold overhand blasthole stoping operation that is geologically and geotechnically complicated, and seismically active, is exploring alternative mining approaches to manage these adverse conditions.

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Mining Through Voids – Pamour

Anton Bloem

The Pamour mine, one of Newmont’s Porcupine gold mines, is situated in Timmins, northern Ontario, Canada.

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