Naoi, Makoto and Nakatani, Masao and Moriya, Hirokazu and Yabe, Yasuo (2016) Acoustic Emission Monitoring for Mitigating Seismic Risks in Deep Gold Mines in South Africa. International Journal of the JSRM. pp. 19-22. DOI: https://doi.org/10.11187/ijjsrm.12.1_19
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Gold mines in South Africa have mining depths of up to ~4 km. Mining in such depths under high-stress conditions induces many earthquakes, which pose serious hazard to mine workers. To mitigate seismic risks and to understand the role ofmicroearthquakes in earthquake generation processes, we have conducted ultra-sensitive seismic observations, which allow acoustic emissions (AEs) to be detected down to MW −5 (typical rupture size ~ several centimeters), at two South African gold mines. We have found out various modes of AE activity previously unknown from conventional seismic networks (detectability only down to MW ~ −1): AE activity before and after an MW 2.2 earthquake, AE activity likely reflecting damage accumulation processes ahead of an advancing mining front, and AEs occurring steadily along geological faults. This paper summarizes these findings, which received the fiscal 2016 frontier award of the Japanese Society for Rock Mechanics (JSRM).
[error in script]| Item Type: | Article |
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| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Acoustic emissions, Induced earthquakes, Microseismicity, South African deep gold mines, Aftershocks |
| Subjects: | Region > South Africa Inducing technology > Underground mining |
| Project: | Geo-INQUIRE > JAGUARS: Mining induced seismicity associated to gold mining |
