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Author ORCID Identifier

Heba Khalil: 0000-0002-2862-2560

Tuo Chen: 0000-0002-6551-4091

Yu-Hang Xu: 0000-0002-6222-2296

Hani Mitri: 0000-0002-6482-7424

Abstract

Mining-induced seismicity is a commonly occurring phenomenon in underground mines. This poses a greater challenge to the safety of the mining operation. This paper presents a case study of the Young-Davidson mine in northern Ontario, Canada, where seismic events of magnitude Mn 2.0+ have been observed at mining depths of 600 to 800 m below the surface. The occurrence of large seismic events at such shallow depths is the key issue of this study. A comprehensive study of the microseismic database has been conducted to discern the root causes for the unusually strong seismic activities recorded at shallow depths. The effects of mining activities in the vicinity of two dykes intersecting the orebody on the seismic response are investigated. Variation of the b-value derived from the magnitude-frequency distribution is examined, and moment tensor inversion for three large seismic events is carried out to determine the source mechanisms. It is shown from this investigation that the influence of the sill pillar is more critical, leading to high mining-induced stress and the occurrence of large events. While the findings from this research are specific to this case study, they could be used to shed light on the causes of induced seismicity at other mines with similar conditions.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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