Strategies for Creating Prescribed Hydraulic Fractures in Cave Mining

The cave mining method was traditionally applied to massive low-grade, weak orebodies at shallow depths (less than 500 m) that favour cave propagation under gravity. Currently, this method is being applied to stronger orebodies and is taking place at depths of up to 2000 m below the surface. To ensure continuous cave propagation, preconditioning of the orebody is essential in this latter caving environment to improve rock mass caveability and to...