A short intro from me, your consultant …

What is my academic background: Bachelor of Applied Science, Majoring in Geology from the University of Ballarat

What is my technical background: 10+ years in open pit hard rock mine geology and project geology roles.

How long have I been with BMT? I have been with BMT as a consultant since September 2019

What was my experience with blast movement before joining BMT? Utilised the system as a customer in early 2010 – 2016 in an open pit Ag-Pb-Zn operation. Saw the benefits early on and how easy it was to fit into our current Geology procedures.

What is my favourite aspect of the role? Getting to meet, teach, and learn with our various customer base around the world. Every user and every site is unique and has its own challenges. It is awesome to be able to get this exposure within the mining industry.

Why is accurately measuring blast-induced movement so important? So much technology, time, money and resources go into defining, extracting and processing the ore, however, the most chaotic event to happen to the ore occurs in between these steps… The blast. The smallest amount of movement, measured correctly, can lead to significant savings from reducing ore loss, dilution and misclassification.

What are some of the most common misconceptions regarding blast movement? There are a couple of misconceptions about blast-induced movement.

The first is “our rock does not move”. The rock will always move, and more than you might think. The powder factor should be designed with the aim of optimising fragmentation, not minimising movement. In other words, the D&B department should focus on the optimal powder factor, of which movement is a by-product. The use of BMMs allows the D&B department to do this without comprising the quality of the ore feed.

The second misconception is that blast movement is predictable and can, therefore, be modelled. Blast movement is highly variable and is based on too many immeasurable inputs to accurately predict and model. Modelling is ultimately a guess and the only confident way to account for blast movement is to measure.