Trail Mountain Mine: A Case Study for Improving Locations of Mining-Induced Seismicity with Double-Difference Relocation

Details

• Personal Author:
  McCarter MK ; Pankow KL ; Sonley E
• Description:
  In October 2000, temporary seismographic stations were installed above the Trail Mountain Mine, Emery County, Utah, USA to supplement a regional network. Over seven months, 1826 mining-induced seismic events were recorded with a magnitude range of M 0 to M 2.2 (Arabasz et al., 2002, 2005). Routine event locations for this dataset cluster around the longwall mining activity during the recording interval. However, applying a double difference relocation technique to the routine locations significantly improves the correlation between mining activity and event location. The resulting relocations depend greatly on station distribution and the number of arrival time picks. We use this dense temporary array to assess station distribution requirements for applying the double difference technique at other mines by systematically removing data from available stations, thus simulating sparser networks. The insight gained using the Trail Mountain dataset is used to develop a metric for assessing the usefulness of above-mine networks and to develop a tool for expanding seismic network coverage. To verify the appropriateness of these tools for wider application, we examine data from two additional mines located in the western United States. Improving the relative locations of mining-induced seismic events highlights the association of these events with active portions of the mine. Clusters, regions of quiescence and relative timing of events can be used by mine operators to assess hazard, optimize production, and evaluate performance of mine plans. The lessons learned from this study may be used in future network design to improve accuracy of event locations at other mines. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Case Reports Mining Occupational Health Safety Workplace
• Keywords:
  Case-studies Ground-control Ground-stability Mine-shafts Mining-industry Room-and-pillar-mining Stone-mines Underground-mining Work-environment
• Series:
  Mining Publications
• ISBN:
  9780978938338
• Publisher:
  West Virginia University
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Contract
• Genre:
  Proceedings
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 10 ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 8 ; Utah ; Washington ; West Virginia
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  SRL - Spokane Research Laboratory
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  187-194
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20035840
• Citation:
  Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Ground Control in Mining, July 28-30, 2009, Morgantown, West Virginia. Peng SS, Barczak T, Mark C, Tadolini S, Finfinger G, Heasley K, Luo Y, eds. Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University, 2009 Jul; :187-194
• Editor(s):
  Peng SS; Barczak T; Mark C; Tadolini S; Finfinger G; Heasley K; Luo Y
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2009
• NORA Priority Area:
  Mining
• Performing Organization:
  University of Utah
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20080601
• Source Full Name:
  Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Ground Control in Mining, July 28-30, 2009, Morgantown, West Virginia
• End Date:
  20091130
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:ff016f4d249747f3c38d85085863910edacadeed1223e6ad189d432e3ef478fcab2f487b26e33f69de4be2cf6d11cccd4001c606d9cf7b6ab42a0972fecccb4c
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/227125/cdc_227125_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 958.96 KB ]