The summary consists of six sections: 1. Executive summary 2. Importance of location information: lessons learned from three recent rescue operations 3. Why conventional wireless techniques are difficult for underground mines? 4. Potential pitfalls of unconventional wireless techniques 5. Advantages of the microseismic technique 6. Future work on microseismic based trapped miner location technique

Despite the all precautions, underground coal mining is one of the dangerous industries owing to fatal occupational accidents. Accidents are complicated events to which many factors effect on their formation and preventing them is only possible by the analyses of the accident occurred in past and by straight evaluation of the obtained results. In this study, hierarchical loglinear analysis meth...

This paper focusses on the description of reliable, safe and economical treatment of mine water from different types of mines and applications by advanced membrane systems. The applications include mine drainage water from underground mines, intrusion water in open pit mines and excess water from tailing storage facilities. The illustrated references confirm the existence of robust, reliable, a...

Regulations on worker exposure to diesel particulate matter (DPM) are becoming increasingly stringent in the mining industry. Due to the complexity and unpredictability of this aerosol, there is a need for new tools to help mines develop an effective strategy to reduce DPM concentrations. To address these needs, NIOSH has developed a portable elemental carbon monitoring device for use in underg...

The paper briefly presents practical applications of positioning and navigation services based on wireless ranging technologies suitable to operate in confined space environments with special attention paid to underground workings of mines. Results of the recent work related to underground location and tracking in day-to-day as well as emergency situations are described, together with the achie...

Underground mining is considered to be one of the most dangerous industries and mining remains the most hazardous occupation. Categorical analysis of accident records may present valuable information for preventing accidents. In this study, hierarchical loglinear analysis was applied to occupational injuries that occurred in an underground coal mine. The main factors affecting the accidents wer...

Land surface deformation due to underground mining is always a concern to the local communities and environment. The underground coal mines at the study site in Northern China are located quite closely to each other. In order to ensure safe mining as well as to prevent illegal mining activities, differential radar interferometry (DInSAR) was introduced for monitoring mine subsidence. The spaceb...

In some instances, extensive room-and-pillar workings can collapse with little warning and pose a serious risk to underground miners. Traditional strength-based pillar design methods applicable to coal or hard-rock mines use a factor of safety defined as pillar strength divided by pillar stress. Factor of stability, defined as local mine stiffness divided by post-failure pillar stiffness, may o...

In this paper, we investigate the benefits of Optimized Link State Routing Protocol used for communication in underground mines. Due to network failures, node and link failures in the past few years an explosive growth in the use of wireless routing protocols for communication needs in the underground environment. Most studies indicate that it is impossible for reliable routing under ground lev...

A large number of metal deposits are initially extracted via surface methods, but then transition underground without necessarily ceasing to operate above ground. Currently, most mine operators schedule the open pit and underground operations independently and then merge the two, creating a myopic solution. We present a methodology to maximize the NPV for an entire metal deposit by determining ...