Mining, water-reservoir impoundment, underground gas storage, geothermal energy exploitation and hydrocarbon extraction have the potential to cause rock deformation and earthquakes, which may be hazardous for people, infrastructure and the environment. Restricted access to data constitutes a barrier to assessing and mitigating the associated hazards. Thematic Core Service Anthropogenic Hazards (TCS AH) of the European Plate Observing System (EPOS) provides a novel e-research infrastructure. The core of this infrastructure, the IS-EPOS Platform (tcs.ah-epos.eu) connected to international data storage nodes offers open access to large grouped datasets (here termed episodes), comprising geoscientific and associated data from industrial activity along with a large set of embedded applications for their efficient data processing, analysis and visualization. The novel team-working features of the IS-EPOS Platform facilitate collaborative and interdisciplinary scientific research, public understanding of science, citizen science applications, knowledge dissemination, data-informed policy-making and the teaching of anthropogenic hazards related to georesource exploitation. TCS AH is one of 10 thematic core services forming EPOS, a solid earth science European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) (www.epos-ip.org).
1 July 2012 in International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences
On 19 March 2013, a tremor shook the surface of Polkowice town where the Rudna Mine is located. This event, of ML = 4.2, was the third most powerful seismic event recorded in the Legnica Głogów Copper District (LGCD). Inhabitants of the area reported that the felt tremor was bigger and lasted longer than any other ones felt in the last couple of years. Analysis of spectral parameters of the records from in-mine seismic system and surface LUMINEOS network along with broadband station KSP record were carried out. The location of the event was close to the Rudna Główna Fault zone; the nodal planes orientations determined with two different approaches were almost parallel to the strike of the fault. The mechanism solutions were also obtained as Full Moment Tensor from P-wave amplitude pulses of underground records and waveform inversion of surface network seismograms. The results from the seismic analysis along with macroseismic survey and observed effects from the destroyed part of the mining panel indicate that the mechanism of the event was complex rupture initiated as thrust faulting on an inactive tectonic normal fault zone. The results confirm that the fault zones are the areas of higher risk, even in case of carefully taken mining operations.
On 19 March 2013, a strong, shallow, induced seismic event struck a mining panel in the room‐and‐pillar Rudna copper mine in southeastern Poland. The event caused important damage at the mining tunnel and trapped 19 miners, who were safely rescued a few hours later. Although mining‐induced seismicity is frequent at this mine, the 19 March event was unusual because of its larger magnitude, its occurrence far from the mining stopes, and because it was accompanied by a strong hazardous rockburst. The mining inspections following the event verified the occurrence of a rockfall with tunnel floor uplift but also recognized the presence of a faulting structure at the hypocentral location. The availability of three monitoring networks (including local and regional data, short‐period and broadband seismometers, and surface and in‐mine installation) presented an optimal setup to determine rupture parameters and to compare the performance and results from different installations.
On 17 April 2015, the Wujek/Śląsk underground coal mine in Poland was struck by a strong induced tremor of magnitude M4.0. The event was followed by a massive rock burst and a collapse of tunnels in the vicinity of the hypocentre. The earthquake was widely felt in the densely populated surrounding area. In this paper, we describe a possible connection between seismological parameters, such as the seismic source location and the focal mechanism, and the ground deformation just above the collapsed tunnels a very short time after the event occurred. We have shown that joint seismological and satellite observation can be very valuable and important tools not only to improve the knowledge concerning mining rock bursts and tunnel collapses, but also to find their influences on the ground effects observed on the surface.
1 July 2016 in International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences