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BACKMeasuring Blast Movement to Reduce Ore Loss And Dilution
Blasting causes movement of the rock and can be detrimental to the accurate delineation of the ore and waste regions within the resulting muck pile.
The consequences can be ore loss and dilution. However, ore loss and dilution can be minimized and significant increases in profit can be realized if the movement can be accurately measured. Various methods have been used to measure muck pile movement including poly-pipe, chain and sandbags but these have been either inaccurate or impractical.
Blast movement monitors provide accurate three-dimensional movement vectors following a production blast. From this information, the ore block boundaries in the blasted bench can be adjusted to compensate for the measured
movement and then ore recovery can be optimised. Following initial development of the prototype technology, BMT further developed and demonstrated the system in actual production blasts at an open pit gold mine operated by Placer Dome Inc.