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APPLICATIONS OF GEOMATICS IN UNDERGROUND MINING
Abstract
Mining is a complex and staged process that includes: prospecting, documenting, and mine planning, opening up and extraction of mineral (mining, transport, processing and deposition of waste), revitalisation and re-development of former mining area. Mining permit and decision on environmental impact of the enterprise are required prior to commencement of mining. During and after end of mining, impact of mineral extraction on surrounding environment, including surface deformation and the related mining damage, water and soil contamination, as well as other components of environment are monitored. These stages involve handling and manipulating large sets of spatially referenced data that describe deposit and mining parameters. Management of spatial data and information obtained through spatial analyses are facilitated by geomatics that can be used as platform aiding decision making at all of mining operation stages. In this work GIS applications in subsequent stages of mining and a practical application of geomatics in three selected processes related to mining activity have been presented. The first related to deposit documentation, the second associated with operation of an underground mine and the third connected with monitoring and analysis of the impact of mining on the surface. The examples concern a Copper District in Poland and focus on: (i) modelling of a copper ore deposit based on analysis of data samples from vertical channels in side walls in order to identify correlation between parameters describing copper bearing shales, one of lithological layers in copper ore deposits with the aid of spatial statistics, results of modelling of a selected part of the copper deposit have shown spatial autocorrelation of variables, and local accumulations of high and low values of parameters have been identified; (ii) monitoring for spatially distributed mechanical conveyor belt network system in underground copper ore mine with the aid of a GIS software. The results provide information on technical condition of objects by generating reports about exceeded alarm or warning levels пїЅ to eliminate emergency stops of conveyors. The system allows tracking the degradation processes in order to define the optimum moment of exchange, conducting statistical analyses based on collected qualitative and quantitative data. It also supports planning activities related to the selection and arrangement of conveyors in the transport system, their service and support decision-making activities associated with the operation of conveyors. (iii) modelling of ground surface subsidence caused by underground mining of copper ore with analysis of Sentinel-1A/B SAR data in GIS; the results provide periodic and systematic information on the extent and magnitude of deformation in mining area allowing for monitoring of ground surface changes in time. It has been found that for the time analysed (11.2015-9.2016) in this case study the magnitude of subsidence has reached 125 mm.
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