3.

ROCK MASS CHARACTERISTICS

Assessment of the collapse mechanism requires information on the rock mass properties in the area of the prior subsidence events. The 1961, 1999 and 2001 failures described in earlier sections of this report occurred close to the southern side of the open pit within the Waihi township as shown in Figure 5a.

3.1

Classification of materials

Information on the geotechnical characteristics of the rock mass forming the southern wall is available in a number of references (Opus 1999, PSM 1997b, PSM 1999, WGM 1999). Figure 20 shows the boundaries of the Licensed and Extended Pits (as defined in the 1997 PSM report) together with the main geological zones and section locations. A brief description of the site geology is given in Section 5, Volume 1 of the PSM report. There are two main geological units in the pit: the Andesite Zone and the Ignimbrite Zone. The subsidence crater failures have all occurred in the Ignimbrite Zone. The geotechnical materials in the

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subsidence zones have been classified in slightly different ways by WGM, PSM and Opus. For the purposes of this report, a simplified version of the detailed classification used by PSM has been used. The classification system adopted for this report is summarised below in Table 2.
Table 2: Classification of geotechnical units in the southern wall Layer Type Description A Soils Topsoil; fill; volcanic ash; alluvium; lacustrine sediments B Conglomerates Cobble andesite a dense clayey gravel C1 Welded ignimbrite Strong jointed rock mass C2 Sandy ignimbrite Weak jointed rock mass D Tuffs Layers of weak lapilli tuff, rhyolite tuff and alluvium underlying sandy ignimbrite at some locations E1 Altered andesite Weak upper layer of andesite E2 Andesite

Ore

Quartz veins

Figure 21 is a cross section through the pump house showing the typical distribution of these zones in the southern wall. 3.2 Material properties

The 1997 PSM report includes a detailed summary of laboratory test data (PSM Appendices J and S). A modified version of PSMs summary of material strength data is given in Figure 22. This shows: mean values and bounds for laboratory shear strengths shear strengths estimated from back analyses of slope failures unit weights, and uniaxial compressive strengths based on RDH series borehole logs Although PSMs table indicates that shear strength values are based on triaxial testing, the values for welded ignimbrite and andesite are in fact estimated values from the Hoek-Brown empirical strength criterion (Hoek & Brown 1997). Following the 1999 collapse, 10 boreholes (RDH1 to RDH10) were drilled in the Seddon Street area and the logs of these holes are given in the Opus report. The thicknesses of the superficial materials directly beneath the Seddon Street area are summarised on Figure 22. Figure 23 shows the frequency distributions for strength of the different materials based on the descriptions in the RDH logs. The most common strength values for each type have been used to describe the material strength in the summary on Figure 22. The typical strength description for andesite is significantly lower (R4 = 50-100MPa) than the uniaxial compressive tests on the stronger material from the deep geotechnical holes (mean = 167 MPa

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in PSM report Table J2). Geotechnical properties of the ore are not described in detail in any of the available references. The engineering logs for boreholes W20 and W21 (see Figure 24 for summary) indicate that the lode material (quartz veins) has a higher strength range (25 to 250 MPa) than the hanging wall and footwall which are generally less than 100 MPa. 3.3 Rock mass classification

The quality of rock masses can be systematically described by means of classification systems such as Bieniawskis Rock Mass Rating (RMR, Bieniawski 1993) or Bartonss Q-system (Barton & Grimstad 1994). RMR is based on the following rock material and mass parameters: Uniaxial strength of intact rock Rock Quality Designation (RQD) - % of intact core > 100mm Spacing of discontinuities Condition of discontinuities Groundwater conditions Figure 25 shows an example of an RMR calculation sheet. Q is defined as follows:
Q= RQD J r J w Jn J a SRF
RQD is Rock Quality Designation Jn is joint set number Jr is joint roughness number Ja is joint alteration number Jw is joint water reduction number SRF is stress reduction factor where

The Q and RMR classifications can be correlated with the following equation (Bieniawski 1976):
RMR = 9 log e Q + 44

RMR values have been calculated for the welded and sandy ignimbrites and the altered and unaltered andesite (see Figure 22). Table 5.6 of the 1997 PSM report indicates that andesite RMR values are fairly consistent in the south wall, as shown in Table 3 below.

Table 3: South wall RMR values from Table 5.6 PSM report Layer/Area RMR

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Andesite south wall east Andesite south wall west Ignimbrite layer Mean values

Min 39 Poor 40 Poor/fair 40 Poor/fair 40 Poor/fair

Mean 67 Good 64 Good 68 Good 66 Good

Max 97 V good 92 V good 90 V good 93 V good

The values for andesite in the above table are slightly higher than those estimated from the RDH series boreholes (see Figure 22). This is possibly because the andesite rock improves in quality with depth or because of the style of the RDH logs. The RQD and defect spacing parameters on the RDH logs are shown graphically and statistical distributions cannot be calculated directly as in the PSM report. For the lode material, the engineering details on the logs for the W series boreholes appear to provide the most relevant data (see Figure 24). The format of this information is best suited to calculation of the Q index. For the present purposes, Q is calculated where Jw and SRF are set to 1. Using the Martha Lode as the representative type, the Q values of Table 4 are obtained. The chart on Figure 32 shows the descriptions for the numerical Q values.
Table 4: Q values for ore and host rock Rock Immediate hangingwall
8 Fair 85 Very good 32 Good

Min

Lode Footwall

Max 133 Extremely 38 good Good 500 270 Extremely Exceptionally good good 133 Extremely 73 good Very good

Q Mean

3.4

Defect orientations

The design study for the extended pit involved the compilation of a very large database of over 4000 defect measurements. Analysis of the defect patterns indicated that the pit could be divided into a number of structural domains as indicated on Figure 26. The latter figure shows the pattern of joints and shears on the south side of the pit. Shears comprise about 20% of the defects in the south wall, which is about four times the frequency of the other sectors in the pit. The main defect patterns on the south side of the pit are summarised in Table 5 below and are shown on stereographic projections on Figure 27.

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Table 5: Summary of defect characteristics in south wall from Table 5.4 PSM report Strike extent Dip extent Area Set Dip/dip dirn Mean Max prob Mean Max prob South central J1 85/030 1.2 23 1.0 17
S1 S2 S3 60/300 75/048 80/115 85/025 65/310 80/050 80/115 85/025 75/283 5.7 3.6 0.2 0.2 11 3.6 0.6 0.4 7.8 9.0 0.4 2.1 1.2 12 6.7 17 16 1.2

South wall

J1 S1 S2 S3

Central east

J1 J2

3.5

In situ stresses

No in situ stress measurements have been carried out near the mine site. PSM made two assumptions about the in situ stress field for their numerical analysis of the interaction between the stopes and the open pit (PSM 1997a): Horizontal stress equal to overburden pressure Horizontal stress greater than overburden pressure down to a depth of about 350m From the stress blocks on the output figures for the analysis, it appears that PSM have assumed that the horizontal stress is more than 3 times the vertical stress for the second case. This would be an unusually high horizontal stress for these relatively low modulus rocks. The horizontal to vertical stress ratio can be estimated from the following formula (Sheorey 1994):
k = 0.25 + 7 E h 0.001 +

where z (m) is the depth below surface and Eh (GPa) is the average deformation modulus of the rock mass in a horizontal direction. For Eh = 10 GPa and z = 100m, this indicates a k ratio of close to 1. The virgin state of stress prior to underground and open pit mining will now have been considerably modified by the extensive excavations. The horizontal stress normal to the pit wall will be very low (as evidenced by the open tension cracks), and probably less than half the vertical stress. If the virgin horizontal stresses were equal, the induced stress concentration parallel with the pit perimeter could theoretically be several times the horizontal stress value. However, the most likely situation is that there is a zone of loosening around the pit extending horizontally to a distance of about half the pit depth. This is indicated by the crack directions normal to the pit wall shown on Figure 2 of the initial PSM report on the 1999 collapse (PSM 1999) (Figure 6b).

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4.

STOPE STABILITY ASSESSMENT

The stability of the stopes has been considered in terms of stope back, hanging wall, footwall and surface crown pillar failure mechanisms as well as void migration. A brief outline of these methods and processes is given in the following sections. 4.1 Modified Mathews methods

The stability of a stope can be assessed on the basis of information on the rock mass strength and structure, the stresses around the opening and the size shape and orientation of the opening. There are two fairly similar systems of this technique developed from earlier work by Mathews (Mathews et al. 1981):

4.1.1

The Stability Graph method (Hoek et al. 1995, Potvin et al. 1989)

This procedure requires the calculation of two factors, N, the modified stability number which represents the ability of the rock mass to stand up under a given stress condition (Figure 28) and S, the hydraulic radius (Figure 40) which accounts for the stope size and shape.
N = Q A B C

where

Q is the modified Q number (SRF and Jw = 1) A is the rock stress factor B is the joint orientation adjustment factor C is the gravity adjustment factor

The adjustment factors and the stability graph are shown on Figure 28. This technique is widely used in Canadian mining applications and has been recently modified to take account of situations where there is a loss of confining stress in the walls of a stope (as is highly likely for the Waihi situation). For this case, a modified rock stress factor A (Kaiser et al. 2000) is used to account for tensile boundary stresses:
A = 0.9 e
11
t r

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