Caving

Addressing The Challenges And Future Of Cave Mining
Jarek Jakubec

There are over 50 global cave mining projects in various stages of studies and development.

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Accounting For Micro-Defects In Rock Mass Rating
Andy Thomas

In 2001, Laubscher’s Mining Rock Mass Rating (MRMR) classification system (Laubscher and Jakubec, 2001) introduced the rock block strength concept to account for scale effects and the influence of closed defects on intact rock strength (IRS).

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Microdefects: GSI For Fragmentation Assessment?
Andrea Russo

Recently, SRK Chile was involved in a caving project in Chile and in charge of numerical modelling to analyse pillars and overall mine stability and to define ground support.

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Geotechnical Data Collection And Approach To Modelling For Cukaru Peki
Neil Marshall

A geotechnical model is the fundamental basis for the design of an open-pit and underground mines.

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Downstream Effects Of Cave Fragmentation
Adrian Dance

Since the 1990s, ‘mine-to-mill’ studies have evaluated the impact of blast fragmentation on downstream plant throughput.

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Geotechnical Model Development For Caving Design
Ian de Bruyn

SRK performed a comprehensive redevelopment of the geotechnical model for an existing large panel caving operation with the aim of assisting cave planning and design in five future cave blocks.

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Geomechanical Design For The World’s Largest Underground Mine
Esteban Hormazabal

The Chuquicamata underground mine in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile is one of the largest planned mining projects in the world to use block caving with macro-blocks option to mine copper ore.

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Mass Mining Diamonds
Jarek Jakubec, Dan Lagacé

Mass mining including block caving, incline caving, front caving, sub-level caving and sub-level retreat are the principal mining methods for primary diamond deposits worldwide.

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Guidelines On Caving Mining Methods: The Underlying Concepts
SRK Consulting

In 2000, International Caving Study (ICS) published a practical manual on block caving by Dr. Dennis Laubscher.

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Open Pit To Underground Transition
Simon Hanrahan

SRK carried out a scoping study on an existing open pit operation (12 Mtpa) that is soon to be reaching a depth where the mine will need to transition to a large-scale underground mining method.

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Planning Considerations For Transition From Open Pit To Underground
Peter Terbrugge

Many ore deposits extend vertically, a fact which is not always known at the start of mining.

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Rapid Cave Design And Production Scheduling
Scott Loewen

For early stage caving projects, there is usually a high degree of uncertainty in the input parameters that impact the mine design and strategy.

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Cave Mining Risks - Not Necessarily Greater, But Definitely Different
Neil Winkelmann

Cave mining, and in particular block-cave mining, stands at one end of the spectrum of mining method-related risks.

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Mudrush Dynamics In Underground Mining
Jarek Jakubec

Mudrush, mudflow, or mudpush are the most common terms describing uncontrolled ingress of assorted mixture of water and solids.

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The Importance Of Post-Drilling Assessment
Carl Kottmeier

In sublevel caving operations, it is imperative that the production blastholes be drilled accurately so that there is no risk of unblasted ore remaining between adjacent drawpoints.

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Automation In A Cave Mining Environment
Iouri Iakovlev

In general, automation is most effectively applied to repetitive tasks, such as production loading and trucking.

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