Assessment of groundwater inflows into the opencast mine during the development of a copper-iron-vanadium deposit in the Middle Urals

When mining mineral deposits, groundwater is an unfavorable factor, since it affects the moisture content of minerals, host and overburden rocks, leads to the development of a number of engineering and geological processes, seeps into open and underground mine workings and significantly complicates the work of mining equipment, sometimes making it impossible. To combat groundwater, drainage systems are arranged and when the aquifer is opened, further extraction of minerals goes under the protection of drainage. When choosing the type of drainage system and drainage devices that it will include, as well as their parameters, the amount of water inflow expected during the development of the deposit is used, estimated taking into account mining conditions and parameters of the engineering structure (in this case, a quarry). Water flows are an important factor determining the complexity of mining a deposit. Assessment of water flows, as a rule, is carried out by several methods at the same time in order to exclude the possibility of obtaining a significant error in determining the volume of inflow and errors in choosing a drainage system. The evaluation method is chosen based on the natural and mining conditions prevailing at the research object. The authors of the article evaluated the hydrogeological conditions of the deposit of solid minerals. In the course of the work, the methods of assessing water inflow that are most suitable for these conditions were analyzed and selected, the assessment of water flows formed due to groundwater into the projected quarry for the extraction of copper-iron-vanadium ores was carried out.

Ekimova O. A., Parfenova L. P., Bichukina I. A. Assessment of groundwater inflows into the opencast mine during the development of a copper-iron-vanadium deposit in the Middle Urals. MIAB. Mining Inf. Anal. Bull. 2022;(5—1):70—81. [In Russ]. DOI: 10.25018/0236_1493_2022_51_0_70.

Ekimova O. A., Cand. Sci. (Geol. Mineral.), Associate Professor, okopenkina@yandex.ru;
Parfenova L. P., Cand. Sci. (Geol. Mineral.), Associate Professor, parfenovalp@mail.ru;
Bichukina I. A., Cand. Sci. (Geol. Mineral.), head of the ecology department, bia7@svg.ru;
¹ Ural State Mining University, 620144, Ekaterinburg, Russia;
² Joint-stock company «Svyatogor», 624330, Krasnouralsk, Russia.

Ekimova O. A., e-mail: okopenkina@yandex.ru.

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