International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 29 (2019) 535–540

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Mining Science and Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijmst

Safe mining practices under wide spans in underground non-caving

mines – Case studies
J.J. Ran
Kinross Gold Corporation, Toronto M5J 2V5, Canada

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Mining under wide span is of concern as it increases the probability of back caving causing personnel
Received 9 September 2018 injury and equipment damage in underground mines in open stoping and underhand drift-and-fill meth-
Received in revised form 12 January 2019 ods. Though restricting personnel access to well supported lateral development is commonly practiced, it
Accepted 21 March 2019
is not always possible to implement this requirement due to various factors such as ore loss control, dril-
Available online 25 June 2019
ling equipment limitations, availability of remote operating capacity and consideration of productivity.
Even with rules implemented to limit personnel entry into openings with wide spans, the hazards of
Keywords:
equipment damage and back caving still exist. Over the years, different practices have been reported
Mine safety
Wide span
and adopted to minimize risks associated with exposure to large spans in various underground mines.
Back stability Lessons from these practices are beneficial to current and future mines with challenges of safe extraction
Underhand mining of thick deposits in a non-caving setting. This paper briefly summarizes practices in mining wide orebod-
Hanging pillar ies using the open stoping method without personnel access and underhand mining using the drift-and-
fill method with personnel exposure in the industry and presents cases from Kinross mines where the
hanging pillar design was tested, and stope backs were naturally and artificially supported for extraction
under wide spans using the open stoping method.
Ó 2019 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of China University of Mining & Technology. This is an open
access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction Openings such as stopes in the open stoping method and cuts or
stopes in the drift and fill approach have shorter service lives and
In underground mines, the lesser dimension of the back may or may not require personnel access. When the span of these
between two walls of an opening in an approximate rectangular openings is less than 8 m, mine support standards for long term
shape is commonly referred to as the span of the opening. There development are normally modified to incorporate products with
is no clear definition of a wide span as it much depends on the a shorter service life or that do not generate problems for trans-
mine geotechnical setting. portation or mineral processing. For openings with wide spans,
Though support types may be selected using empirical methods stope dilution and equipment damage are the primary concern
such as the Q chart, the field observations indicate that the length when personnel access is not required. When the back stability
of ground support elements that are systematically installed gen- needs to be maintained for access, longer support elements may
erally ranges between 2 and 3 m in mines where the open stoping be installed or backfill with a high strength is placed and condi-
or underhand drift and fill method is used and the host rock mass tioned for underhand mining. Other forms of natural and artificial
is ‘‘fair” or better in terms of various classification schemes [1]. This support to reinforce the rock mass or reduce the effective span
limitation implies a supported span of 4–6 m, according to the have also been tested in the industry.
design rules given by Lang [2]. With practical considerations such This paper briefly summarizes practices in mining wide orebod-
as development over break, formation of intersections and produc- ies using the open stoping method without personnel access and
tivity, many mines require that openings wider than 8 m in span be underhand mining using drift and fill with personnel exposure
supported with additional elements such as longer cable or con- and presents cases from Kinross mines where the hanging pillar
nectable bolts and in some cases, steel and concrete structures. design was tested and long cable bolts, operational controls and
This practice is generally applied to excavations with a long service permafrost effects were used or taken advantage of to stabilize
life such as mine infrastructure and level accesses. stope backs for personnel access.

E-mail address: [email protected]

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmst.2019.06.006
2095-2686/Ó 2019 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of China University of Mining & Technology.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
536 J.J. Ran / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 29 (2019) 535–540

2. Mining under wide spans in conventional open stoping up to 2 MPa except two cases-one under testing and the other
using remote operation [7].
Operations that adopt the conventional open stoping method Barrick’s Cortez Hill underground mine tested the underhand
minimize personnel exposure to wide spans by supporting the drift and fill approach by exposing the CRF up to 10.7 m in 2016
drifts or cross cuts for drilling and blasting and making use of [8]. The CRF was designed to have a 28-day uniaxial compressive
the remote operating capacities of loading and dumping equip- strength of 4.8 MPa at a binder content of 7.5%. From the same ref-
ment for mucking and backfilling. In mines where hydraulically erence, 97% of the test samples exceeded the design strength based
placed backfill is used, discharge points of the pipe lines are located on 511 data points.
near the stope edges. For example, the Kidd Creek mine extracted When mining under CRF, the general practice is that no artificial
open stopes located in rock masses with quality values ranging support is installed on the back, but it is checked and scaled before
between 10 and 23 in the Q system using the transverse primary personnel entry. This requirement is important in preventing mine
and secondary sequence [3]. All panels had a panel strike length accidents. The Mine Safety and Health Administration of the USA
of 20 m, level interval of 30 m and stope length ranging between (MSHA) has reported a few fatalities caused by the fall of back in
13 and 47 m as reported by Ran and Disley [4]. A similar sequence CRF. For example, one miner was killed by fall of CRF off the back
adopted at Glencore’s Nickel Rim South mine was reported by Jal- at Getchell mine in 2008 [9]. When paste fill or similar material are
bout and Simser as shown in Fig. 1 where panels of 12.5 and 17.5 m used, the back is usually supported with wire mesh and elements
in width were designed [5]. such as friction, rebar or cable bolts either before or after fill is
In this mining approach, drilling and blasting activities are car- placed [7].
ried out in the supported overcut drifts and broken ore is mucked
out remotely on the undercut level. Backfill is placed at the stope 4. Trial of the hanging pillar design at Kinross’ Paboase Mine
edge if delivered by pipes or progressively into stope under a wide
span by a remotely operated loader. In essence, the method applied The Paboase underground mine is one of the operating mines at
either longitudinally or transversely does not expose underground Chirano Gold Mines Ltd, a subsidiary of Kinross Gold Corporation
personnel to wide spans. and situated in southwestern Ghana, 100 km southwest of the city
The primary concern of this approach is caving of stope backs in of Kumasi (Fig. 2).
either ore or backfill. If the stope back is exposed in ore, it may be The area of interest is a mining block of 75 m in height and
designed in an arch shape and supported with longer elements located approximately 165 m below the mined out open pit as
while in backfill, the placed fill has to achieve adequate strength shown in Fig. 3. Footwall access drifts on all sublevels at 25 m
through design and implementation of quality control procedures intervals were initially developed for conventional open stoping
[6]. in a transverse mining layout but due to lack of cement supply
and its high cost, the mining method was changed to AVOCA with
3. Mining under consolidated fill two or three ore drives along strike of the deposit with unconsoli-
dated rock fill (URF). The typical overall stope width from the
When the ore rockmass is of poor quality or unsuitable geome- hanging wall (HW) to footwall (FW) is approximately 25 m (Fig. 3).
try for complete recovery with open stoping methods, and in mines Based on the geotechnical study carried out by AMC Consul-
where high seismic activities persist, mining under placed consol- tants, the rock mass quality in terms of the Q system is shown in
idated fill is sometimes implemented. As personnel access to the Table 1 for the ore zone, HW and FW [10]. The dominant geological
mining face is required in this scenario, strict quality assurance structures are faults and shears parallel to ore and host rock con-
and control procedures must be enforced. Pakalnis et al. complied tacts in a steep angle of approximately 85°.
more than 20 cases of mining under consolidated rock fill, and an Production drills were set up and operators were trained to drill
examination of the database shows that the exposed span is up to up holes. Therefore, drilling and blasting were carried out in ore
9.1 m in consolidated rock fill (CRF) of a strength greater than drives on the undercut levels. As stopes were mined retreating lon-
4 MPa at 28 days and in cemented paste or hydraulic fill of strength gitudinally from one end to the centre or the other end, the wide

Fig. 1. Transverse primary and secondary layout used at Glencore’s Nickel Rim South mine (reproduced from study by Jalbout and Simser with minor adjustment of labeling
for legibility) [5].
 J.J. Ran / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 29 (2019) 535–540 537

hanging pillar was partially preserved up to 25 m in strike as seen

in Fig. 5. Further mining without fill confinement to the exposed
pillar led to loss of the hanging pillar up to the stope back when
the mining strike length reached 45 m. At this point, the mine
decided to change the mining method to a modified sublevel cav-
ing design.
It appears that for a successful application of the hanging pillar
design, the pillar must be structurally defined and analyzed to ver-
ify that cable bolts could provide adequate support for the pillar,
and the fill must be placed in a timely fashion and as tightly to
the pillar as possible.

5. Practices of mining under wide spans at Kinross’ Kupol and

Dvoinoye
Fig. 2. Location of the Chirano mining camp (from Google Maps).
Location of the Kupol mine is indicated in Fig. 6. Kupol is in an
arctic climate region, 220 km from the town of Bilibino in the Chu-
kotka Autonomous Region of the Russian Federation. The Dvoinoye
mine is located approximately 100 km north of the Kupol mine.
The upper layer within approximately 250 to 300 m below surface
is in permafrost at both mines.
The mining method selected at Kupol is the single-entry AVOCA
with unconsolidated waste rock as the backfill material. On sill
levels consolidated rock fill (CRF) is placed to separate mining
blocks. At Dvoinoye, the same method as Kupol is used for ore
thickness less than 20 m while the transverse open stoping method
is adopted for thicker zones (>30 m). An ore zone between 20 and
30 m may be mined using either method depending on its scale or
extent. In the transverse layout, primary panels are designed to be
10 m in width and filled with CRF and secondary panels are 20 m
wide with unconsolidated fill.
Fig. 3. Mining block in discussion, red-planned stopes and blue-lateral
development. In general, the rock mass quality at Kupol is ‘‘fair” with a RMR of
53 and 54 or Q of 2.3 and 2.9 for the ore and host rock mass respec-
tively [12]. Dvoinoye has much better rock mass qualities. Based on
Table 1 data from core logging, eighty percent (80%) of the collected Q val-
Rock mass quality defined by use of the Q system.
ues are greater than 45 for the ore zone while 18 for the host rock
Parameter HW Ore FW mass.
RQD 95 95 95 Some stopes mined at Kupol were at a span exceeding 20 m
Jn 3 3 3 under permafrost conditions. These stopes were successfully
Jr 3 1.5 1.5 mined and most of them had only short support (less than 3 m).
Ja 1 1 1
One example is shown in Fig. 7. By use of the average RMR of 53
Q0 95 47.5 47.5
Jw 1 1 1
for the ore zone, Fig. 8 indicates a span range of 5–15 m in which
SRF 2 1 2 the back transitions from the ‘‘stable” to ‘‘unstable” zone. There-
Q 47.5 47.5 23.8 fore, based on Fig. 8, the permafrost condition must have enhanced
the rock mass quality, in terms of RMR, probably to the range of
60–75. However, when there were uncertainties in maintaining
span was exposed, and this required either URF was remotely permafrost conditions (e.g. local thawing due to heat from ventila-
placed, or the back was adequately supported for direct dumping. tion and equipment), the procedure shown in Fig. 9 was used for
Because of lack of remote operating equipment at the mine, it was personnel access. In this procedure, as mining retreats from one
necessary to maintain stability of the wide stope back. One option end, backfill is placed without using remote operation to provide
was to pre-reinforce the pillar between the two ore drives and the a platform for installing long cable bolts. This cycle is repeated
stope back. This concept was initiated by the successful application through the wide section of the deposit.
of the hanging pillar design at Vale’s Copper Cliff Mine [11]. The Artificial support was also used to ‘‘interrupt” wide spans at
design concept used at the Copper Cliff Mine is indicated in Fig. 4. Kupol [13]. One example is shown in Fig. 10 where sea containers
By consideration of the mine operational challenges and the filled with waste rock and cement slurry were stacked as a pillar to
success of Vale’s application, the hanging pillar design was tested reduce the effective span.
at Paboase in 2016. The test started by installing long cable bolts At Dvoinoye all excavations in the host rock mass were system-
up to 12 m in length into the pillar between ore drives, walls and atically supported while cross cuts in the ore zone were selectively
the stope back as shown in Fig. 5. In design, as the mining front supported considering the ‘‘very good” nature of the rock quality in
retreated along strike, backfill was placed on the other end to pro- terms of the Q system, as shown in Fig. 11. For development in the
vide partial support to the hanging pillar between ore drives. If ore zone, the following procedure was observed during the period
necessary, shotcrete packs or similar could be placed on top of fill of mining in the thick zone.
to transfer some pillar load to the URF underneath.
Extraction of the block between 2000 and 2025 levels took (1) All drifts were mapped and empirically evaluated for
longer than scheduled due to various operational issues but the stability,
538 J.J. Ran / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 29 (2019) 535–540

Fig. 4. Section showing the hanging pillar between two drill drifts (reproduced from [11]).

Fig. 7. An exposed stope back with a span exceeding 20 m and support of mesh and
friction bolts of less than 3 m in length.

Fig.5. Cable bolt reinforced hanging pillar, looking south on 2025 level when the
stope was exposed at 25 m along strike.

Fig. 8. Design span curve: blue-RMR = 53, green-RMR range corresponding to a

span of 20 m (chart reproduced from study by Pakalnis [14]).

Fig. 6. Location of the Kupol Mine (map from kinross.com).

(2) Potential wedges were kinematically assessed and

Fig. 9. Steps for mining wide ore zones: retreating in drill drifts at one end and
identified, filling & installing long support (in red) under a wide span at the other end (from
(3) Additional support was installed based on recommendations Kupol mine document).
from previous assessments, and
(4) All rounds were inspected and signed off by geologists. it was slashed to 12.5 m for production drilling of parallel holes
and blasting. Before entry of personnel, the slashed back was eval-
In primary panels of 10 m wide in design, the first pass was to uated by geologists and signed off by a group of technical and oper-
develop the cross cut which was approximately 5 m wide and then ational members (Fig. 12). In secondary panels of 20 m wide in
 J.J. Ran / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 29 (2019) 535–540 539

panels but when the back was assessed to be inaccessible for per-
sonnel, fill was remotely placed using loaders.

6. Conclusions

The stability of excavations with wide spans is particularly

important when personnel exposure is required. Obviously, the
definition of a wide span varies from mine to mine under different
rock mass qualities and structural, geological and hydrogeological
conditions. Generally, a wide span is that which exceeds the rein-
forcement capacity of commonly used systems in a mining setting.
Based on field observations, a span of 8 m that is only supported by
Fig. 10. Sea containers filled with rock and cement slurry stacked as pillars.
short elements (e.g. less than 3 m in length) may be used as a
rough guide if in rock masses of ‘‘fair” or better in terms of the
RMR and Q systems.
One of the most cost-effective ways to mine under wide spans is
probably to keep personnel access in development drifts which are
typically less than 5 m wide by design but rarely greater than 8 m
in as built surveys. This approach is often practiced in North Amer-
ican mines. When the rock mass quality in the ore zone is poor, the
underhand drift and fill or even longhole mining may be selected.
In this case, personnel are exposed and there must be strict quality
assurance/quality control procedures implemented to achieve the
designed fill strength and integrity.
Mining under a span exceeding 20 m with personnel exposure
in ‘‘fair” rock masses is only possible if the rock mass is enhanced
artificially or naturally (e.g. freezing, permafrost) or effectively
Fig. 11. Support selection for cross cuts in the ore zone. reinforced using longer support elements and/or steel and concrete
structures. Permafrost condition may increase the RMR from low
50s to mid 70s. However, the actual permafrost condition must
be verified and monitored as it may change with ventilation and
access of heat-generating, heavy equipment. If in doubt, opera-
tional procedures must be implemented to control exposure or
install additional support. When mining in ‘‘good” and ‘‘very good”
rock masses, spans exceeding 20 m may be exposed with full or
partial support as long as there are procedures implemented to
identify adverse conditions and take remedial measures if needed.

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank Kinross Gold Corporation for

Fig. 12. Overcut of a primary panel – back partially supported. permission to publish this paper.

References
design, the first pass was the same as that for the primary panels
while the second pass was to slash the cross cut to 10 m wide [1] Hoek E, Kaiser PK, Bawden WF. Support of underground excavations in hard
and then install 6 m long cable bolts. The remainder of the overcut rock. Rotterdam: A. A. Balkema; 1995.
[2] Lang TA. Theory and practice of rock bolting. Trans Soc Min Engrs, AIME
was blasted off with production rings resulting in a width of 17.5 m 1961;220:333–48.
between the CRF panels (Fig. 13). Backfill was placed after the back [3] Barton N, Lien R, Lunde J. Engineering classification of rock masses for the
was reconditioned and made safe. design of tunnel support. Rock Mech 1974;6(4):189–236.
[4] Ran J, Disley N. Back caving mechanism and preventive measures for deep
Some isolated longitudinal stopes with back spans exceeding open stopes – case studies. In: Proceedings of the CIM annual general
20 m were also mined in the similar manner as those transverse conference, Edmonton, Canada. p. 1–7.
[5] Jalbout A, Simser B. Rock mechanics tools for mining in high stress ground
conditions at Nickel Rim South Mine. In: Proceedings of the 7th International
Conference on Deep and High Stress Mining. Sudbury, Canada. p. 1–17.
[6] Ran J, Tolgyesi S. Fill back stability in open stope mining with consolidated
backfill. In: Proceedings of the CIM annual general conference. Montreal,
Canada. p. 1–8.
[7] Pakalnis R, Caceres C, Clapp K, Morin M, Brady T, Williams T, et al. Design
spans—underhand cut-and-fill mining. CIM Bull 2006;99(1094):1–7.
[8] Armstrong J. Increasing operational spans underneath cemented rockfill at
Cortez Hills Underground. In: Proceedings of the SME annual meeting.
February 21–24, Phoenix, AZ. p. 1–8.
[9] Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) – US Department of Labor.
Report of investigation MAI-2008-06, fatal fall of back accident April 21 2008.
Vacaville; 2008.
[10] AMC Consultants. CGML mining paboase feasibility study (a report submitted
to Chirano Gold Mining Ltd). Vancouver; 2012.
Fig. 13. Overcut of a secondary panel–back supported with additional 6 m cable [11] Chinnasane DR, Knutson M, Watt A. Use of cable bolts to reinforce the hanging
bolts, noting exposed CRF on both sides. pillars and improve the ore recovery when stopes are mined using double top
540 J.J. Ran / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 29 (2019) 535–540

sills at Vale’s Copper Cliff Mine. In: Proceedings of deep mining, Sudbury, [13] Frith R, Reed G. Coal pillar design when considered a reinforcement problem
Canada. p. 127–32. rather than a suspension problem. Int J Min Sci Tech 2017;28(1):11–9.
[12] Bieniawski ZT. Rock mass classifications in rock engineering. In: Proceedings of [14] Pakalnis R. Empirical design methods in practice. In: Proceedings of
the symposium on exploration for rock engineering, Johannesburg, S. Africa. p. underground design methods, November 17–19; Perth; Australia. p. 37–56.
97–106.