Establishing a sustainable mining plan hingeson thorough surveying and mapping of an orebody during the early stages of an operation’s development.
Surveys address engineering factors related to design, production, facility management, and environmental monitoring. At the same time, mapping examines geological terrains and potential natural obstacles, such as rivers or lakes, that may impact mine design.
Both surveying and cartography involve measuring and displaying underground works and mining areas, determining their spatial relationships to the surface. Furthermore, mine maps provide valuable evidence based on the expertise of past industry professionals, with historical documents contributing to the identification of flooded shafts and new exploration opportunities.
It is undeniable that surveying and mapping are intertwined disciplines, essential for developing any minerals project within an environment that accommodates extractive activities and adheres to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations, including transparency, stakeholder engagement, compliance modelling, and government regulation.
These services are utilised across a range of mining applications to achieve safety, productivity, and security goals. Importantly, they play a crucial role in exploration, mine design, expansion planning, measuring mined areas and volumes, environmental rehabilitation, risk assessment, and monitoring tailings dams, managing acid mine drainage, and stabilising slopes.
Underground mining surveys require specific techniques due to geometric constraints, including vertical shafts and narrow passages. According to GlobalData Market Solutions, the surveying and mapping equipment and technologies in the mining industry include terrestrial, mobile, and airborne high-specification laser scanning systems, 3D modelling, advanced light detection and ranging, photogrammetric surveying, geophysical imaging instruments, and geotechnical instrumentation.
Additionally, core drilling and gyroscopic and magnetic borehole survey tools are employed, along with remote underground surveying solutions, including cavity monitoring aerial robots, mine stockpile and inventory measures, slope monitoring, and ground penetrating radar systems.
Unmanned aerial vehicles and remote visual inspection cameras are also used alongside robotic crawlers. “A growing demand for automated underground surveying solutions is emerging to measure and record the progress of underground mining works, monitor cavity deformations, and assess underground stability,” GlobalData stated.
“While portable laser scanning solutions are increasingly utilised for underground surveying, the popularity of surveying drones has surged, as they can access restricted and hazardous underground areas.”
Given the rising need for technological diversity in surveying and mapping, geographic information systems (GIS) are ideal tools for formulating mine surveys.
They offer widely available Earth observation technologies while addressing economic, social, and governance issues.GIS meets key data and accuracy requirements for appropriate design, integrated planning, spatial analysis, and modelling, along with geodata-related and multi-criteria decision-making within the mining sector.
Consequently, physical planning and strategy policy designs are increasingly becoming geodata-driven, leveraging internet connectivity and advanced computer-aided systems.
Robotics and computer vision have led to significant advancements in geospatial technologies, including the integration of simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) technology with 3Dlaser scanning, enhanced with deep learning for improved feature extraction and environmental studies.
Industry experts anticipate further advances in SLAM, especially as the Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, extended realities, and cutting-edge computing become common digital tools in the industry.
Geophysical surveys typically use magnetic, gravity, electromagnetic, seismic, and radiometric measurements to detect subsurface variations that reveal potential mineral targets.
Meanwhile, mapping focuses on surface and near-surface features, such as faults, folds, and shear zones, to identify likely mineralisation areas.Modern GIS platforms integrate data from geophysical, geological, and geochemical sources, alongside field observations, mapping, and remote sensing.
This integration has led to increased use of geometrics in the industry, which is useful for resolving major spatial issues related to ownership, land use, administration, and mine construction planning, including project closure and site reclamation.
Essentially, their implementation combines traditional and modern surveying and mapping techniques to collect spatial data, helping determine land boundaries for registration rights, identify land use opportunities, and consider engineering and construction factors both below and above ground.
Moreover, geometrics provide usable location-relation intelligence for planning, managing, and monitoring assignments for business and community stakeholders.
Thus, mine surveyors using GIS are ultimately responsible, alongside mappers, for maintaining accurate mine plans while updating surface maps to reflect new structures.
According to the South African Institute of Mining (SAIMM),surveyors are involved in measuring processes that calculate ore production, either in volume or mass, for a mining venture.
They also survey the volume of waste dumps accumulating on the surface of the mining property, effectively turning the surveyor into a resource manager for the mine.
“Since valuable minerals occur in varying concentrations within the ore, the resource manager, in cooperation with the geologist, is responsible for dividing the ore body into blocks where the average grades of the ore are known,” SAIMM stated.
“This enables the mining engineer to determine which blocks are economical to extract and which are not.“ As a result, a plan for the extraction of a blended mixture of low- and high-grade ores can be developed.
“This planning ensures that the mining process is prolonged, optimises ore removal, and allows the metallurgical processing plant to operate efficiently without large grade variations.”
Mine surveyors, SAIMM emphasises, are key contributors to themining industry’s welfare due to their responsibilities in updatingsurface layout maps and surveying underground workings.
The Western Australian government, in its recently updated code of practice developed by its mines survey board, highlighted that a mine plan must encompass all previous workings, including abandoned operations.
This includes records of streets, roads, reservoirs, swamps, water bodies, and any other permanent features that, if disturbed by mineral extraction activities, could cause damage or pose risks to the project.
While mapping larger abandoned workings might have been standard practice in the past, some surveyors and mappers in WA now face the challenge of scrutinising more detailed and smaller mining legacy issues.
“For any mine requiring a mine plan that is suspended or abandoned, a survey of the final workings must be conducted, and the mine plan amended,” the updated code insisted.
“The amended mine plan must be certified, dated, and signed by the authorised mine surveyor on the date of suspension and abandonment.“ A digital record, suitable for archiving and future reference, should be retained at the mine office.”
