Review of the Evolution of Mining-Induced Stress and the Failure Characteristics of Surrounding Rock Based on Microseismic Tomography

Abstract

With the gradual depletion of shallow resources, deep mining has become an inevitable trend and has become an important part of the world mining industry. The high stress concentration caused by redistribution of original stress field will lead to stress-driven failure of surrounding rock; conventional methods, such as point-location stress measurement, analytical analysis, numerical simulation, and physical modeling, are not able to completely reflect the distribution and evolution characteristics of the mining-induced stress field in real time and at mine scale, so it is difficult to fully understand, control, and prevent mining-induced injuries and fatalities. In the past decades, microseismic monitoring technology, velocity tomography, numerical simulation, and laboratory test technology have been successfully applied to better understand mining-induced stress and rock mass failures. The combination of these methods has led to innovative ways to investigate the mining-induced stress field, surrounding rock failure, and hazard prevention. This review focuses on the mining-induced stress and velocity tomography based on microseismic monitoring data. Research progress in analysis and measurement methods of mining-induced stress, rock mechanics for mining, and velocity tomography practices are presented.

Testing the Utilization of a Seismic Network Outside the Main Mining Facility Area for Expanding the Microseismic Monitoring Coverage in a Deep Block Caving

“…Several physical parameters have been used to analyze underground mines, such as b-value, magnitude, rock stress, P-wave and S-wave velocity, etc. [5,6,22,23]. Changes in velocity are an indication of changes in stress.…”

“…Of the ten underground mines with the largest production levels, five of them use the block caving method and have a cave depth of more than 1500 m, namely, the copper, gold and silver mines that are part of the Grasberg Operations of PT Freeport, Indonesia; the Cadia Mine of Newcrest Mining in the Cadia Valley, Australia; and the Padcal Mine of Philex Mining in the Philippines; along with the New Afton Mine, New Gold, Canada, and the diamond mine of Udachny, ALROSA, Russia [1]. The block caving method, especially at depths greater than 1500 m, faces challenges that result from the seismic-induced destruction involved [2,[4][5][6]. This is due to rock mass removed, as the block caving process causes perturbations to already high stress regions in situ which may induce major earthquakes around cave areas.…”