Aseismic Mining Subsidence in an Abandoned Mine: Influence Factors and Consequences for Post-Mining Risk Management

Abstract

In the Lorraine area of eastern France, decades of iron-ore mining from 1850 to 1997 have left vast underground cavities beneath or in the vicinity of urban areas. Several major collapses occurred in the southern part of this iron-ore basin in the 1990s, after the mine closure and the flooding of underground mine workings. Following these large-scale collapses, the French government initiated a strategy of post-mining risk management to prevent and control risks associated with these ground failures. The high-risk zones are secured either by reducing the vulnerability while the moderate risk zones are monitored for public safety purposes by using in situ monitoring. This monitoring relies mainly on real-time microseismic systems, to detect precursors to a rapid large-scale collapse. After the progressive closing and then flooding of the northern iron basin ending in 2008, subsidence was observed in a town of the Lorrain basin in

Automatic Detection and Location of Microseismic Events from Sparse Network and Its Application to Post-mining Monitoring

“…Often implemented in most sensitive zones, microseismic monitoring is proven to be a valuable hazard assessment tool (Kinscher et al 2017) for measurement of the failure initiation in rocks and expected ground surface instabilities such as subsidence (sudden collapse or continuous subsidence). This is especially important in the areas where risk cannot be reduced with other options such as backfilling, which is rarely used due to its high cost (Contrucci et al 2019;Contrucci et al 2011;Contrucci et al 2008;Couffin et al 2003, Didier 2008.…”

Research on Prediction Model of Mining Subsidence in Thick Unconsolidated Layer Mining Area

“…This research result has been widely used. The expression of Boltzmann function is shown in Equation (1). The curve is similar to the prediction formula of the main section along the strike in the semiinfinite mining with PIM.…”

“…(3) The relationship between tanβ1 and tanβPIM By establishing the linear relationship between tanβ1 and tanβPIM, as shown in Fig. 22, the regression relationship is shown in Equation (29), 1 PIM tan = 0.6767 tan -0.3327…”

“…Surface deformation caused by underground mining is a global problem, which will cause damage to surface buildings, railways, rivers, etc., which seriously threatens the normal production and life of the residents in the mining area [1]- [5]. Accurate prediction of surface deformation can not only guide the mining of coal resources, but also provide technical support for the reasonable arrangement of the village relocation, restoration and reconstruction of the mining area's ecological environment above the mining area.…”

Assessment of post-mining terrain suitability for economic use

“…Due to the significant impact of mining on the natural environment causing its transformation, of very importance is the reclamation of mining areas after mine closure. This problem was widely discussed in the past, as well as present works-one can find interesting issues, e.g., in the works (Lin et al 1990;Zhao et al 2015;Işleyen et al 2017;Contrucci et al 2019).…”