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Geologic Considerations in Blasting and Mine Safety

Paper by:

Jay A. Rogers and Robert Lee

The Ensign-Bickford Company, Simsbury, Connecticut, USA

Abstract

Geology plays a major role in all aspects of a blast’s performance. It has been said that geology is the number one uncontrollable factor to be considered in efficient blast design. In the blast design process, bench heights are often selected based upon requirements of the excavating equipment to be used for rock removal. Drilling equipment is selected for economic reasons and the other design elements fall out as a function of these. The influence of geologic structure is commonly addressed as a refinement to an existing blast design.

Geologic information can be used to develop a drilling and blasting program which produces optimum fragmentation to the crushing and grinding circuits. In a perfect world, geologic information is used during the mine-planning phase of development prior to equipment capitalization. However, more commonly, the explosive engineer utilizes rockmass information on an informal basis as problems arise.

This paper presents a general overview of rock and rockmass characteristics including structural feature recognition, the influence of structure on blastability, and recognition of some structure-related geologic hazards found in mine environments. Blast design considerations are discussed from a rockmass perspective.
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