Landslides in the Carpathian flysch have a peculiar susceptibility to activation. This is due to the geological structure of the flysch. This study addresses analysing the effects of a landslide, particularly in regards to the operation of a transportation route that runs through the Carpathian flysch. The studies include both field work and laboratory testing of basic geotechnical parameters. The field work comprises surveys made by a terrestrial laser scanner. The study also includes a number of 2–D and 3–D numerical models. Subsequently, survey results and an analysis of the effects of landslide susceptibility and the behaviour of the road and terrain surface, due to the different loading conditions, are shown.

In the Upper Silesian Coal Basin area, there are post-mining sites of shallow exploitation of metal ores and hard coal deposits that reveal discontinuous deformations. Most often, these areas are heavily urbanised and the appearing deformations may be dangerous to the existing building infrastructure. The work, described in this article, presents the results of the research, which aimed to rate the usefulness of laser scanning to recognize discontinuous deformations on surface areas located over shallow mining excavations. Two laser scanning measurements were taken over the course of a few months. The surface area images were compared to identify changes in its deformation, especially those areas located above mining excavations. The tests carried out by the laser scanning method showed that some of the identified discontinuous deformations could have been connected to the shallowly located mining excavations.

Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) assists in the detection of the unsafe behaviour of slopes and scarps. It also facilitates the assessment of the stability of earthworks. Earth structures are those that are usually made of qualified ground material. One may distinguish between point structures such as mounds, forts and dams, and linear structures such as roads, railways and flood embankments. This article concerns the problem of monitoring and analysing of the effects associated with the unstable behaviour of selected earth structures. TLS enables remote sensing of surface changes in a simple and automated manner. Regular, multiple measurements with the laser scanner are applied in long-term monitoring of the behaviour of the selected objects. The discrete numerical models using, for example, the finite element method (FEM) take into account geotechnical properties of substrate and allow for the risk assessment and stability testing of such structures. The numerical model of the structure along with the parameters of the substrate are introduced into the FEM package. This allows for the analysis of stresses, strains and displacements, along with different loading cases. The work here presents a few selected earth structures for which the aforementioned analyses have been undertaken.

Seismic energy propagation from the hypocentre of mining-induced tremors usually causes an uneven distribution of the peak ground velocity PGV_Hmax in tectonically complicated structures, and consequently, an uneven distribution of damage to buildings located on the ground surface. This study aimed to estimate the impact of high-energy mining-induced tremors in fault zones on damage to buildings. In the study, we describe a case of one of the highest-energy mining-induced tremors E = 4.0 · 10⁸ J (local magnitude ML = 3.6) that occurred in the Upper Silesian Coal Basin (USCB), Poland. The hypocentre of the tremor was most probably located in the Barbara fault zone, one of the larger faults in that western part of the USCB. Numerous damaged buildings on the terrain surface were registered, both in the epicentral zone and at a greater distance from the epicentre, mostly from the southern side of the Barbara fault zone. We calculated that the tremor was characterised by a normal slip mechanism associated with the same kind of fault as the Barbara fault. The azimuth of the nodal planes was similar to the west-east direction, which is consistent with the azimuth of the Barbara fault. From the focal mechanism, the greatest propagation of seismic energy occurred in south and west-east directions from the tremor hypocentre towards the surface. It was found that from the northern side of the hanging wall of the Barbara fault, there were 14 instances of damage (19%), and in the southern part of a hanging wall, there were 58 (81%). Therefore, the directionality of seismic energy propagation is aligned with the focal mechanism acting in the Barbara fault. It has also been concluded that a width of the zone of up to about 1200 m along the Barbara fault is the most threatening on the basis of registered building damage in the geological conditions of USCB. The study has shown that in assessing the impact of mining-induced tremors on buildings and the environment, the disturbance of seismic energy propagation by larger faults should be considered.

In this study, the shape and size of a combustion cavity with a fracture zone in the gasified coal seam was determined with the use of control boreholes and a ground-penetrating radar (BGPR) test. The underground coal gasification (UCG) field-scale experiment was performed in Carboniferous strata in coal seam 501 at a depth of approx. 460 m in the Wieczorek hard coal mine in the Upper Silesian Coal Basin, Poland. After the termination of the UCG reactor, five coring boreholes were drilled to identify the geometry of the resulting combustion cavity and the impact of the UCG process on the surrounding rock mass. Borehole ground-penetrating radar measurements were performed using a 100 MHz antenna in three boreholes with a length of about 40–50 m. This enabled the identification of the boundaries of the combustion cavity and the fracture zone in the coal seam. The fracture zones of rock layers and lithological borders near the control borehole were also depicted. As a result, the cavity was estimated to have a length of around 32 m, a width of around 7 m and a height of around 5 m. The analyses performed with the control boreholes and the BGPR provided sufficient information to determine the geometry of the combustion cavity and the fracture zone.