Track 6: Mining Engineering and Mine Planning

Stress Inversion Using Data Recorded by A Small Seismic System F. Calixto1, W. Suaña2 and A. Rigby1 1Institute of Mine Seismology 2Volcan compañía minera, Lima, Peru ABSTRACT Stress inversion from seismic data is a great complement to stress measurements performed by the mine. Seismically active mines, while sometimes facing the inherent hazards posed by episodes of dynamic rock mass failure, also have the opportunity to use recorded waveforms to perform advanced seismic analysis (e.g. calculation of source mechanisms and stress inversion). In this paper, we show an application of a recently developed method (Malovichko and Rigby, 2024) to data recorded by a small seismic system in South America. The method, called Stress Inversion from Mine Seismicity – SIMS, was successfully used to better understand the stress field. The agreement between the inferred principal stress orientations and stress measurements was good. In particular, it was found that the maximum principal stress near a seismically active decline is mainly controlled by the presence of a fault, causing its orientation to be close to vertical. In other areas, the maximum principal stress is mostly sub-horizontal and orthogonal to the orebody. The results improve confidence in the mine’s adopted stress state. KEYWORDS Stress inversion, seismicity, seismic monitoring INTRODUCTION A mine in South America is monitoring seismicity using a small system that first started with six 4.5 Hz geophones and then was expanded to a total of ten. The waveforms used to calculate the source mechanisms were of high signal to noise ratio, which could be achieved thanks to good sensor installation procedures (e.g. installation in 10 m deep boreholes away from potential sources of mechanical and electrical noise; sensor placement providing good three-dimensional coverage and away from heterogeneities such as caves, stopes and their yielding zones; full grouting of the borehole with appropriate mix). In addition, the boreholes were surveyed and their orientations were confirmed electronically and with seismic data. Moreover, seismic velocity calibration was performed to ensure reliable hypocenter estimation.

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