The island of Cyprus is famous for its rich deposits of volcanic mineralisation that yielded large quantities of copper, gold, and silver. The abandonment of the waste material in several dump sites during exploitation severely impacted the environment. A significant environmental issue is the acid mine drainage from the hydration of large barren piles that cover these old open pit mines. However, abandoned piles are still enriched in precious metals and perhaps even rare earth metals. These dump sites may form a new possible “deposit”, which may attract companies’ economic interest. Removing the stockpiles can be cost-effective, since the secondary extraction process is profitable, in addition to the benefits from the restoration of the natural environment. The case study considered here pertains to the North Mine of Mathiatis, where unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) images were used to create not only a 3D topographic map but also to locate these dump sites and finally to create a 3D model of one of these waste stockpiles. The methodology proposed here to locate dump sites by using point cloud data (x, y, z, RGB) and high-resolution images provided by UAVs will assist in the secondary mining of old open-pit mines by defining the bottom and top stockpile surfaces. The reconstructed 3D waste piles can also be used to calculate the volume they occupy and other parameters, such as the gradient of slopes, that are essential for estimating the cost of possible restoration. The proposed methodology was applied to the stockpile STK1 with the most available drillhole data, and its volume was estimated at 56,000 m3, approximately.
This paper refers to the numerical simulation of the conditions that have lead to the collapse of the shaft-cavern collapse in São Paulo, Brazil (2007) constructed with the Conventional Tunnelling Method (CTM) or the New Austrian Tunneling Technique (NATM). The Pinheiros station where the incident has occurred, is located in an area known as the Caucaia Shear Zone, resulting in a highly fractured medium (four main families of discontinuities, i.e. two subvertical and two dipping towards the tunnel walls).The main observed lithologies were biotite gneiss and granite gneiss. According to the Bieniawski classification, the following rock mass classes were observed: II,III,IV (partially corresponding to saprolite), and V (partially corresponding to residual soils). The shaft-tunnel construction is simulated by virtue of the 3D finite differences code FLAC3D™. Special emphasis is given on the appropriate quantitative description of the geological conditions. A kinematic cohesion-friction softening model of the discontinuous rock mass is used. It was found that failure is manifested with the evolution of shear bands starting from the corners of the cavern periphery as this approaches the shaft while retreating. Before this, another cylindrical shear band initiates from the bottom of the shaft and also propagates upwards to connect with the former and hence producing the final collapse.
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