Revisiting ground vibrations due to mining equipment motion

CIM Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2011

T. G. Joseph, M. Welz

Joseph (2002) introduced passive seismic monitoring to measure mining equipment performance. This paper evaluates the potential of passive seismic monitoring to correlate mining equipment operation with oil sands surface response, with a mining hauler as the seismic source. When applied to moving haulers, this action–reaction approach is complex. Vibrations from on-board equipment, such as pumps and tires, dirty the signal with noise. To facilitate any correlation, the signal must be cleaned up. Existing geophysical analytical techniques were manipulated to evaluate the noise problem and to filter sufficiently to permit an evaluation of whether a mining equipment action–ground response relationship is in fact discernable.

Keywords: Seismic monitoring, Mining equipment, Vibrations, Motion correlation