Mining Technical Services.

”We can provide your underground coal mine with the determination and persistence it needs to thrive whether this be in times of faulted ground or when the going gets tough.
Richard CampbellPrincipal Geotechnical Engineer

Geological Mapping & Support Auditing (Development Districts)

Longwall Fault Drivage & Reporting

Determination & Persistence.

Our underground mining geology team are consistently exceeding customer expectations across the Australian underground coal mining industry.

Our primary services range from longwall fault drivage, development geotechnical/geological mapping and auditing, strata hazard identification and reporting, mine planning and documentation generation through to dispatching daily geological reports of current development and longwall production faces.

With our enriched combined knowledge and experience, we can provide your underground coal mine with the determination and persistence it needs to thrive whether this be in times of faulted ground or when the going gets tough.

Our services also extend through to supporting the onsite geology and geotechnical team with the day to day processes that are essential to running a safe and productive mine.

Geological Mapping & Support Auditing.

Keeping up to date with development mapping and support auditing is an important, yet, critical task for ensuring geological hazards are reported and that roof & rib support has been installed in compliance with the mine manager’s support rules.

When things get busy in the geology and geotechnical departments – it is often the one task that is neglected or de-prioritised.

Fortunately, we are here to help, and it is one of our underground mining specialties. We can assist you with:

Systematic geological mapping on a regular basis, or as required, depending on the development unit advance rates
Systematic primary support installation audits (usually done in conjunction with the geological mapping)
Updating proprietary geology mapping drawings
Updating proprietary primary support drawings
Updating proprietary hazard and/or strata registers with our findings
Report/discuss strata issues that we see as hazardous with the panels’ ERZ controller and department superintendents

Development Fault Drivage.

When a development unit encounters a geological structure, our geologists can provide fault drivage inspections, photos, and drawings the instant they are intersected. Following this, they can provide correlations with current geological model understandings and other useful information in the immediate area to give rise to more accurate trajectories and movement kinematics along the fault structure.

This can be very advantageous for the development planning team. As the more accurate the grade plans are, the better the estimates you have on the length of grading sequences. To this end you can minimise stone dilution which is always a positive (for ROM dilution and wear and tear on mining equipment), and to also minimise the effect it will have on the second working’s production.

Our geologists can also provide clear and professional pre-emptive grading plans based on modelled/mapped data which can be included in the next ‘permit to mine’ for development units.

Longwall Fault Drivage & Reporting.

Our Longwall fault drivage management system can be summarised into the following categories: planning and operational processes.

Planning Processes

The services we provide during the longwall planning stage:

Review of the current understandings and nature of the geological structure(s).
Interrogation into the quality of geological data and the quality of the geological model surrounding the structure(s).
Review of the operational standards such as strata consolidation and strata control requirements.
Undertaking a longwall system health check, using LVA or similar systems and producing a list of defects that require repairs.
Provision of assistance and advice in risk assessments.
Develop and deliver management/crew briefings and presentations.
Setup the Longwall Mapping Procedures.
Liaise with the Longwall Automation Engineer in setting up networked systems that export raw data from the LW shearer system; this assists with the 3D positioning of the working face for analysis and for automation of the cross section drawing process (see operational processes below for an example); and
Produce a multi-page drawing document on the accurate fault structure data and geological models, a multi-page drawing document is developed.

All these services we provide coalesce into a final illustration of the longwall in cross section at regular intervals over the fault drivage retreat interval. See example in Figure below.

Longwall Fault Drivage & Reporting.

Operational Processes

The services we provide during the longwall operational stage:

We are in constant contact with longwall operations team.
Develop flight plans and grade plans on an as-required basis to minimise cut stone.
Advisory on the correct horizon profiles to be followed; this is to ensure:
- roof cavity formation is kept to a minimum; and
- to provide accurate estimates on cut stone dilution for the mine planning team.
Providing all the necessary departments with a daily geological face map and inspection report to ensure the mining grade is on track and that all relevant information is communicated. Our daily reports consist of:
- Longwall Inspection Reports – geological and geotechnical observations in the maingate, tailgate and working face with photos of main geological structures and other features of relevance. Reporting also consists of;
  - maingate/tailgate chainage lead.
  - face advance & face along pan angles for indication on LW flight stance.
  - snapshot of average shield leg pressure over a 24hr window.
- Geological Face Mapping – this is a cross section of the inspected face with all identified structures and features concerning safety, strata stability and dilution ratios.
- Map view of current longwall – an overview of all the face cross sections rendered, it is a top-down view of structures intersected and interpolated.