Kinematic Analyses of the Western Pitwall of the Main Pit in the Letseng Diamond Mine, Lesotho

Lephatsoe, M. N. (University of KwaZulu Natal) | Hingston, E. D. C. (University of KwaZulu Natal) | Ferentinou, M. (University of KwaZulu Natal) | Lefu, N. (Letseng Diamond Mine)

OnePetro 

Abstract The presence of discontinuity planes and their orientation has an adverse influence on the stability of pitwalls in open pit mines, which is of great concern to the mining operations at Letseng. To this end an evaluation of the stability of the western pitwall of the Main Pit at Letseng open pit mine has been carried out. A detailed scanline survey was conducted followed by kinematic analysis using the Markland's test in order to determine the possible modes of failure. Stereonet based kinematic analysis using Rocscience Inc. DIPS 6.0 program revealed two main clusters which are Joint sets 1 and 2 with the mean orientations (85°/206°) and (87°/093°) respectively. The analysis revealed that the steeply dipping discontinuities promote the potential for toppling failure as well as wedge failure. Sensitivity analyses was further undertaken in order to assess the effect of saturation conditions on the safety factor of the slope using Rocscience Inc. software. Introduction In open pit mining, the design of the rock slopes has to remain stable for the period of excavation as well as for the life span of the mine. There are many factors that have to be considered in slope stability analysis such as groundwater, slope plan geometry, properties of discontinuities and weathering. These factors are in most cases the major cause of failure if the knowledge and understanding of their mechanism is not sufficient (Hoek et al., 1995). Frequent assessment of the stability of final slopes is a crucial part of open pit mining especially when the pit becomes deeper and the slope geometry becomes unfavourable. Thus, slope stability analyses should be regularly performed in order to assess the safe and functional design of excavated slopes as structurally controlled failure in jointed rock mass is common (Bye and Bell 2001).

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