Mining-induced seismicity - hazard assessment and mitigation for deep mining

矿业对我国的经济有很大的影响。2003年，采矿业占加拿大出口收入的12.6%，为经济贡献了410亿美元，直接雇佣了38.9万加拿大人。随着对原材料需求的不断增长，发现和开发世界级矿床已成为国家的重要支柱。然而，行业面临着严峻的挑战：缺乏HQP，经济矿床的发现有限，采矿方法成本高且风险大，以及与深部开采相关的挑战。拟议的研究的目的是影响矿物资源的回收过程，协助采矿业适应这些挑战、新的条例和日益增加的国际竞争。如今，高昂的金属价格给加拿大矿山带来了巨大的压力，迫使它们提高开采率，将深层储量转化为经济矿山。然而，由于深度增加（约2500米），这些储量在加拿大著名的安全标准下更难开采。突发性剧烈岩石破坏（岩爆）难以预测，对深部开采构成重大危害。尽管预测岩爆具有固有的困难和复杂性，但其对风险管理的战略重要性是显而易见的。本项目旨在开发、测试和证明一种新的方法的有效性，以数值预测由岩石开挖引起的全矿区脆性破坏迁移模式。该研究将利用复杂的多维地球物理和地震学数据来验证一种称为“采矿多米诺效应”的创新地质力学解释假设。新知识将通过培训HQP和用数据集成、建模和信息检索的新方法支持决策来传播。这项研究的预期结果将产生新的采矿战略，使加拿大人能够发展更有效和更经济的采矿过程。它还将协助更好地管理其他领域的类似问题，例如核废料储存库选址、了解二氧化碳封存储层的行为、流体注入以及油气储层管理。

Mining has a strong influence on our nation's economy. In 2003, mining accounted for 12.6% of Canada's export earnings, contributed $41 billion to the economy, and directly employed 389,000 Canadians. With the growing demand for raw and processed materials, the discovery and development of world-class ore deposits has become a key nation sustainer. However, industry faces serious challenges: lack of HQP, limited discovery of economic deposits, costly and risky mining methods, and challenges related to deep mining. The proposed research is designed to impact the mineral resources recovery process, assist the mining industry in adapting to these challenges, to new regulations, and to increased international competition. Today, high metal prices place tremendous pressure on Canadian mines to increase extraction rates and transform deep reserves into economic mines. However, due to increased depths (>2500 m), these reserves are more difficult to extract within Canada's renowned safety standards. Sudden violent rock failures (rockbursts) are difficult to predict and pose a major hazard to deep mining. Despite inherent difficulties and complexities involved in forecasting rockbursts, the strategic importance for risk management is evident. This project aims to develop, test and demonstrate the validity of a new approach to numerically predict mine-wide brittle failure migration patterns caused by rock excavation. The research will utilize complex multi-dimensional geophysical and seismological data to validate an innovative geomechanical interpretation hypothesis called "mining domino effect". The new knowledge will be disseminated by training HQP and by supporting decision-making with new methodologies of data integration, modeling and information retrieval. The expected outcome of this research will result in novel mining strategies that will enable Canadians to develop more efficient and economical mining processes. It will also assist in better managing similar problems in other fields such as in siting nuclear waste repositories, understanding the behavior of CO2 sequestration reservoirs, fluid injection and oil and gas reservoir management.