Heminegligencia Visuo-Espacial
Heminegligencia Visuo-Espacial
Heminegligencia Visuo-Espacial
Abstract
Chuquicamata mine is an open pit operation located in the northern part of Chile. This mine went into production in 1915,
mining 1,000 tpd of oxide ore. Today it is a large scale operation mining 186,000 tpd of mainly sulphide ore. The present
mine plan is for open pit operations to cease in year 2013 at a depth of 1100 m. Although the orebody continues below
the bottom of the final pit shell, the cost increments associated with a deep pit operation do not allow for further open pit
mining, therefore it become necessary to initiate a transition from open pit to underground mining. The underground
operation will be implemented at depth, in a hard and massive rock mass and in high stress environments. To make this
project economically viable requires application of a large scale and low cost underground mass mining method in order
to achieve the required high production rates. The only methods that can achieve these requirements are block and panel
caving. The transition from a large scale and deep open pit to underground cave mining at Chuquicamata will face with
several geotechnical challenges. These include the presence of the large and deep open pit which will produce zones of
stress concentrations and zones of low confinement, the magnitude of induced stresses due to the pit depth, cave
propagation, simultaneous open pit and underground operations, the presence of the West fault and the shear zone,
subsidence and water inflows. This paper discusses these geotechnical challenges identified at the scoping engineering
stage of Chuquicamata’s project for a transition from open pit to underground mine by caving and describes technical
strategies to reduce and manage associated risk at all stages of project development.
Granodiorites
Mt of ore and 115 Mt of waste. The current mine plan is to
reach a depth of 1,100 m in year 2013. Although the ore Moderately sheared zone
Waste
body continues below of the final pit bottom the open pit, the Highly sheared zone
operational cost at that depth will not allow for continued
mining by the open pit method. Therefore, it has become
necessary to initiate a transition from open pit to
underground mining. This transition phase will require suc- -------------- West fault -----------------------------------------------
cessfully overcoming a number of technical and economic
issues (Arancibia and Flores 2004). The technical issues Quartz-sericitic rock / Highly sericitic rock
Increasing grade
include the geotechnical challenges which must take into
Porphyries
account the re-gional West Fault and its shear zone as East porphyry with sericitic alteration
shown in Figure 4, the presence of a large and deep open
pit which will produce zones of stress concen-trations and East porphyry with chloritic alteration
zones of low confinement, a hard and massive rock mass
and the depth of the un-derground excavations. It should be East porphyry with potassic alteration
evident, therefore, that the decision on transition from open
pit to underground mining should take into account the
number of geotechnical factors which control the rock mass Table 1: Geotechnical Units
response during this phase. This is particularly crucial when
simultaneous surface and underground operations are Geotechnical UCS FF RMRL GSI
considered. Unit (MPa) (fract./m)
The scoping study of this project has indicated that the
most suitable underground mining method is panel caving Quartz-sericitic
based on the characteris-tics of the Chuquicamata deposit rock 20 1 to 5 55 to 65 70 to 85
and the eco-nomic and business requirements of the Highly sericitic
project. Panel caving, illustrated in Figure 5, is considered to rock 10 > 10 35 to 45 25 to 40
be the only method that could achieve high production rates
East porphyry with
and low operational costs.
sericitic alteration 31 1 to 5 60 to 70 55 to 70
This paper presents and discusses the geotechni-cal
challenges which may have a significant im-pact on the East porphyry with
economic of this transition project from a large and deep chloritic alteration 84 1 to 10 55 to 65 55 to 65
open pit to underground cave mining at Chuquicamata mine East porphyry with
potassic alteration 85 1 to 10 55 to 70 55 to 75
2 GEOLOGICAL AND GEOTECHNICAL UCS Uniaxial compressive strength of the intact rock
SETTING AT CHUQUICAMATA FF Fracture frequency (including weak veinlets)
RMRL Laubscher’s rock mass rating
The Chuquicamata porphyry copper orebody is GSI Geological strength index
rectangular in plan, and dips vertically. The
mineralization was controlled by the West Fault which is
located at the toe of the West wall. From the fault to the The stress field at Chuquicamata has been measured
West is waste and from the fault to the East is ore, as using a hydro-fracturing technique in deep vertical down
illustrated in Figure 4. holes. The in situ stress field is defined by a vertical stress
About 2,470 Mt of ore, averaging 1.54% Cu, have being proportional to the depth, with a magnitude in the range of
mined out from the Chuquicamata ore body since 1915, and 35 to 40 MPa at the elevation of a future UCL. The hori-
870 Mt will be mined out from 2004 to 2013 (final pit). zontal stresses are defined by minimum and maximum
However, the ore body is open at depth, with geological stress ratios, KMIN and KMAX, respec-tively. KMIN ranges from
resources estimated to be 1,500 Mt at an average grade of 0.5 to 1.0, with a direc-tion of N20ºE and KMAX varies from
0.65% of Cu for the underground mining, as shown in Figure 1.0 to 1.7, with a direction of N70ºW (Torres et al 2003).
4. These values will be verified using the CSIRO hollow
At the Chuquicamata mine the predominant rock types inclusion technique to perform stress measurements from
are granodiorites and porphyries, whose western contact is the exploration tunnels which will be available below the
defined by the West fault, a large regional fault with a NS final open pit shell at the end of the year 2004.
trend, 4 to 6 m thick, and defining a 150 to 200 m wide shear
zone on its western side. This shear zone has a poor to very 3 THE TRANSITION PROCESS
poor geotechnical quality, and is located in the lower third
part of the West Wall’s slopes. In the upper part of these There are many near surface deposits that have
slopes the rock is Fortuna granodiorite. On the eastern side considerable vertical extent. Although they are initially
of the West fault appears a massive quartz-sericitic rock, exploited by open pit mining, there is often a point where
and beyond that porphyries with different types of alteration. decisions have to be made to either continue deepening the
Hence, from West to East the main rock mass types at pit or mining the same deposits by underground methods. At
Chuquicamata are: pre-sent several open pit mines are planning, or are in the
The engineering geology at Chuquicamata is such that process of implementing, a transition to underground
twelve geotechnical units have been defined (Torres et al mining. They include Bingham Canyon in USA,
2003), as shown in the plan view of Figure 6 and the EW Chuquicamata and Mansa Mina in Chile, Grasberg in
and NS cross sec-tions shown in Figures 7 and 8, which Indonesia, Palabora and Venetia in South Africa, Argyle,
also shown the main geological structures, as also the Mount Keith and Telfer in Australia.
current and final pits. The main geotechnical units in the The decision to make the transition from open pit to an
sector of interest to the transition project have the underground operation is often based on a simple
characteristics summarized in Table 1 (Flores et al 2004c). determination of the NPV of the next feasible open pit
such a transition, and the follow-ing questions must be For example, if the layout design was based on a certain
addressed: fragmentation finer than the actual one, the occurrence of
1. What is the optimum height of the ore column that can be hangouts would become a serious operational problem, and
mined safely from a economi-cal/geotechnical/ operatio- the need for secondary blasting and draw point repairs will
nal perspective? be larger than expected.
2. Will the cave propagate upwards through the entire block As the evaluation of the cavability of the rock mass is
height? commonly based on Laubscher’s chart, the MRMR
3. What is the minimum thickness of the surface crown pillar estimates must be as reliable as possi-ble, as illustrated by
required to allow simultaneous surface and underground the following example:
operations? If the data available indicates that Laubscher’s RMR
4. When is it no longer safe to be mining in the open pit could vary from 55 to 65, a Monte Carlo simulation indicates
while caving is occurring? How long could both mines that a value of 57 for MRMR have a 15% probability of
operate simultaneously? exceedance, and caving initiation would require a hydraulic
5. Will the subsidence generated by the under-ground radius, HR, equals to 38, which corresponds to a 23000 m2
mining affect the surface infrastructure surrounding the square area.
pit ? When? If the data indicates that RMR varies from 45 to 65, the
6. What are the main geotechnical hazards, and how should same analysis would indicate that a 22000 m2 square area
they be dealt with? is required (HR = 37).
On the other hand, if the data indicates that RMR varies
The potential consequences of an ill-defined transition from 55 to 75, the same analysis would indicate that a
project can be large, not only economi-cally but also 37000 m2 square area is required (HR = 48).
environmentally, and even politi-cally. Hence an overestimation of the lower bound for RMR has
In addition, many aspects of the transition prob-lem are a minor effect on the project (-4%), but a underestimation of
beyond the ranges of applicability of known solutions. For the upper bound for RMR could have a major impact on the
example, the simultaneous operation of the open pit and project (+61%).
underground mines by caving methods requires a stable Therefore, any additional cost incurred improving the
surface crown pillar between the cave back and the pit reliability of the geotechnical data must be considered a
bottom. However, at the same time, cave propagation very good investment and, at the same time, an insurance
requires the failure of this pillar to connect to ground against changes from the expected geotechnical setting.
surface, so the definition of crown pillar failure is not the The key geotechnical issues that are considered relevant
usual. Furthermore, the span of this surface crown pillar is in a project for a transition from open pit to underground
much larger than the maximum span of surface crown pillar mining by caving are:
used in open stope mining. 1. The selection of the undercut level, which defines the
The answer to this and other questions requires an block height. Proper selection of the block height is
improved understanding of the behaviour of the rock mass, particularly important when there is the potential for
the mechanics of caving propagation, and the effects of a simultaneous open pit and underground operations.
simultaneous surface and underground mining by caving 2. The cave initiation and propagation through the rock
methods. column to be caved. This is important to determine if the
The quality and reliability of the geotechnical data is of rock mass will cave or stall.
paramount importance for the engineering of a transition 3. The minimum crown pillar thickness required for
project, and factors such as the strength, cavability and simultaneous open pit and underground operations.
fragmentation of the rock mass could have a large impact 4. Subsidence due to the failure of the pit slopes after the
on the project. connection of the cave back with the pit bottom, with a
and/or the frac-tures and the cave generated by the the near future a number of large open pit operations which
caving. Water inflows and/or mudrushes can cause include Bingham Canyon and Grasberg will be undergoing
damage to underground mines by caving methods due to similar transition. As a result, the subject of transition was
the sudden inflow of wa-ter/mud from drawpoints, ore included as one of the major research topics in the ICS-II.
passes or other underground openings. Figure 16 This research was focussed on developing guidelines on
illustrates the consequences of a mud rush in a mine by rock mass charac-terization, caving propagation, surface
caving. crown pillar, subsidence and water inflows, all of which are
important geotechnical issues for consider-ation in a
transition project.
5 CONCLUSIONS The outcomes of this research will be used in the
Chuquicamata transition project as part of the overall
The geotechnical challenges associated with the planned Codelco Norte strategy to ensure the suc-cessful transition
transition from open pit to underground cave mining at from open pit to underground cave mining given the
Chuquicamata have been identified at the early stage of the geotechnical challenges identified.
project (scoping study), and Codelco Norte Division is
developing appropriate technical strategies to reduce and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
manage the potential risks associated with the geotechnical
challenges identified. These strat-egies are now being The author acknowledges the Division Codelco Norte for
incorporated into the ongoing engineering studies of the the permission to publish this paper. He wishes to also
transition project. thank the Geotechnical Group of Codelco Norte Division for
Hence, and as an integral part of the overall tran-sition having provided material used in the paper. Special thanks
project at Chuquicamata, a worldwide benchmark study and are given to Professor E T Brown AC and Drs. Antonio
literature review on transi-tion from open pit to underground Karzulovic and Gideon Chitombo for their encouragement
mining by caving was undertaken (Flores et al 2004a). This and technical discus-sions.
was carried out through the International Caving Study
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