Prism and Prismless Monitoring in an Open-Cut Gold Operation

PRISM AND PRISMLESS MONITORING 

OVERVIEW

Due to the loss of a significant number of physical prisms through vandalism, the on-site geotechnical team from Filminera Resources Corporation’s Masbate Gold Project, an open-cut gold mine in the Philippines, required a solution to effectively manage the mine’s safety, including their ability to detect and measure deformation.

CHALLENGE

GroundProbe’s challenge was to provide a flexible, reliable, long-term, total monitoring solution that could cover a broad-area open-cut gold operation using both prisms and virtual points.

SOLUTION

GroundProbe immediately recommended the installation of GMS-Dual (Geotech Monitoring Station) – a long-term background monitoring tool designed to track and monitor both prisms and virtual points. The system allows for the measurement of areas that are difficult, dangerous or even impossible to reach using prisms. It specialises in monitoring open- cut pits and highly vegetated slopes and detecting and measuring deformation on tailings dams, dumps and cuttings.

Complimenting the advanced hardware offering, GroundProbe’s intuitive visualisation software SSR-Viewer.

RESULTS

“The GMS-Dual was selected due to its unique prismless monitoring functionality whereby users can detect deformation across the slope by placing virtual points anywhere on the wall within SSR-Viewer, our geotechnical monitoring and analysis software.

The GMS-Dual is then able to reflect its laser signal directly off the rock, corresponding to the exact location and placement of the virtual points in SSR-Viewer, allowing it to detect hotspots of movement across the area of interest.”
– Fernanda Carrea, GroundProbe Head of Product Development.

Using SSR-Viewer’s intuitive visualisation tools, the geotechnical team could pinpoint hotspots of movement across the pit, represented visually through a colour gradient heatmap which was draped over the top of a photographic representation of the area.

The GMS-Dual was easily deployed in just minutes and positioned looking down to one of the mine’s main pits, where hundreds of virtual points were digitally placed on the slope.

Within days of monitoring, the GMS-Dual provided extensive practical data on the overall stability of the pit. It also proved its competency in detecting and tracking both positive and negative deformation trends across each of the different types of points; Prism Points, Pixel Points and Precision Points,”
– Prastowo Harymurty, GroundProbe Technical Services Superintendent.

The GMS-Dual monitored continuously and without interruption, its high accuracy and precision successfully detecting sub-millimetre movement.

“The data gathered enabled the on-site geotechnical team to identify areas with differentiated geotechnical deformation trends; for example, some zones featured no movement while others presented noticeable linear or regressive deformation trends.”
said Mr Harymurty.

To provide geotechnical peace of mind, blasting activity in the lower benches of the pit was also monitored using virtual points.

Using SSR-Viewer’s intuitive visualisation tools, the geotechnical team was also able to perform a velocity analysis and even conduct remote inspections of the areas of interest in real-time using the GMS-Dual’s built-in telescopic camera.

Additionally, the system’s ability to monitor both prism and virtual prism points allowed the geotechnical team to monitor the remaining prisms installed on the pit walls, providing three-dimensional displacement data of these points in real-time.

“Thanks to the GMS-Dual and its prismless monitoring, we have been able to counteract the lack of continuous, real-time slope monitoring caused by the unauthorised removal and vandalism of physical prisms by intruders.

Moving forward, our geotechnical team is excited to incorporate the system into our permanent on-site monitoring processes and procedures thanks to its easy setup, user-friendliness and smart data capture.

We are eager to continue using the GMS-Dual to effectively monitor slope stability, allowing us to better manage risk without delay or rely solely on physical prisms.”
– Peter Alip, Chief Geotechnical Geologist, Masbate Gold Project.

GroundProbe is proud to have shared their world-class expertise with Masbate in providing real-time solutions for measuring and monitoring geohazards to restore ongoing onsite mine safety.

GroundProbe is the most trusted brand for real-time geohazard monitoring. With a track record that speaks for itself, our fleet of cutting-edge technologies deliver the most precise and valuable data.

Image 1. GroundProbe’s GMS-Dual