JK Webinar: Caving Mechanics in Deep, High Column Cave Mines

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Presenter: Professor Andre van As

Overview: 

The future of mining lies underground, and the future of underground mining resides predominantly in cave mining methods, as only these have the ability to yield the vast quantities of minerals required to meet the world’s increasing demand.  Until more recently, cave mining methods have only been utilised to extract shallow- to intermediate-depth orebodies; however, the past two decades have seen mining companies push the envelope by applying these methods to much larger scale deposits to depths of around 1000m.  Significant technical and operational challenges accompany current planning/development for even larger mass mines at greater depths. These ultimately translate into unprecedented levels of mining risks which need to be identified and mitigated.

The mining industry can no longer afford to continue to ‘cut and paste’ mine designs that were developed for a completely different mining environment. Applying past state-of-the-art, empirical relations that stretch beyond the supporting data introduces an unacceptable level of risk into mine design, which could continue to cost the industry billions of dollars in losses and ultimately attract the attention of regulatory authorities and in some cases increase sovereign risk.

To address the technical challenges and risks associated with deep mass mining methods, the WH Bryan Mining Geology Research Centre (BRC), within the Sustainable Minerals Institute at the University of Queensland, has formed a ‘Deep Mining Geosciences’ (DMG) group which is tasked with developing a strong industry-collaborative programme of applied mining research and education in the area of Deep Mining Geoscience.

To this end, the DMG group is focused on five key research areas that address the majority of the technical issues facing future mass mining, as identified by the mining industry.  In addition to research, DMG is also rolling out a strong professional development programme focused on addressing the growing skills gap in underground mass mining.

Presenter Bio: 

Professor Andre van As is an underground mine geotechnical engineer who has spent most of his 30 year career working on caving operations and caving projects.  Andre has worked on, or had significant involvement in, more than ten major caving operations and projects. He sits on several cave mining geotechnical review boards and has published widely on cave mining and caving geomechanics. Andre is currently the Group Leader of W.H. Bryan Mining & Geology Research Centre's Deep Mining Geoscience group.