Drone video has been used successfully for the past two years for weekly surveillance of tailings storage facilities (TSFs) under construction/operation at remote sites in the Philippines as part of an overall technical review role for the projects. This role includes full-time technical support by in- country personnel with an annual in-person field inspection by senior personnel from Australia and/or Canada. The videos are taken by mine technicians under the direction of site engineers. Technical details of the TSF construction/monitoring are then reviewed by the site team with off-site senior engineers in a weekly Teams meeting.
The videos have been found to be very useful and provide the reviewers with more information than still images. The drone route typically follows an established pattern that gives an overview of the site while more detailed close-up views can be requested by the reviewers if a particular issue arises. Most of the time, the reviewers view the videos before the Teams meeting and can then fast-forward to critical viewpoints during meeting discussion.
The video meeting format has been instrumental in the identification of issues such as potential instability of surrounding cuttings and waste rock dumps in the steep topography, poor drainage control leading to potential severe erosion, borrow area management, tailings discharge management and access road planning. The drone video also allowed a high level of technical support to site supervisory staff at the remote site that would otherwise be impossible.

Tailings storage facilities present a global and growing challenge for mining companies. Tailings, the by-products of the processing plant, need to be carefully managed, as the tailings storage facility could present a potential risk to lives and livelihoods in the event of a collapse. Such collapses can lead to environmental impacts of significant and permanent damage to regions downstream. Consequently, real-time monitoring of the structural stability of such facilities is a significant opportunity for the safety and sustainability of active mine sites and legacy mines. To our knowledge, this paper explores the world’s first application of muon tomography to analyse tailings dam structures by mDetect Pty Ltd and Prominent Hill at the Prominent Hill Mine site in South Australia. We present a novel method and technology to investigate the inner structure of tailings storage facilities performed using muons, a natural source of radiation that can be used to take X-ray-like scans of large structures. Muon technology, therefore, offers a unique opportunity to provide deep structural insights into tailings storage facilities and potentially a platform from which future research can investigate the development of early warning systems for change detection.

The design process and implementation of effective construction plans are critical aspects of high- risk geotechnical structures such as tailings dams. Apart from legal, financial, environmental, and political considerations in the construction or upgrading of tailings dams, comprehensive design approaches should comprise possible adverse impacts on the facility’s structural integrity. This is based on the detailed geotechnical assessments and possible structural responses before, during and after the construction stages. According to the ANCOLD consequence guidelines (2012), active earthquake zone design parameters and operational requirements should consider the severity level from minor to major catastrophic damages. Subsequently, the detailed design and management system could identify mitigating strategies for high seismic zones to achieve high-quality operation outcomes. Therefore, real-time monitoring techniques will add to the risk management system to alert operators to any changes in the tailings dam’s external or internal structural components to assess new or residual risks influenced by earthquake loadings. Real-time monitoring data was collected and studied from 13 Vibrating Wire piezometers (VWPs) and five Shape Array inclinometer devices installed at the dam foundation and crest alignment. Geotechnical conditions and accumulative excess water pore pressure development within the dam foundation were studied in conjunction with construction and seismic loadings. The outcomes of this study provided appropriate instructions to manage the construction stages. It included the accommodation of acceptable levels of pore pressure fluctuation to avoid geo-structural instability due to the expected large settlement within clayey deposits in the dam foundation at depth. In addition, the required time to dissipate excess pore pressure was determined and considered to prevent unfavourable deformations imposed by external earthquake loadings.

This paper is an illustrative example of how available archive satellite imagery can be used to produce topographic and reconstructed surfaces and then draw valuable insights from them for the purpose of tailings storage facility (TSF) management.
A search of commercial and government archives yielded hundreds of images covering the Jagersfontein TSF. This satellite imagery dates back to the 1970s and includes both mono and stereo images from Keyhole, Landsat, Sentinel, and WorldView satellites. Where stereo pairs are available, it is possible to directly produce a topographic surface (DEM). When stereo imagery is unavailable, mono images can be used to produce a reconstructed surface of the dyke structure and deposited tailings.
The orthophotos and surfaces (DEM) produced show the geotechnical features of the tailings facility in detail. Spectral analysis of the images makes it possible to determine the distribution of tailings and high-moisture tailings. The surfaces (DEM) for each year can be used to directly measure dam crest height, operational freeboard, environmental containment freeboard, storage capacity, and beach profiles.
Lastly, comparison of successive surfaces provides measurements of cut-and-fill volumes. Historical surfaces are valuable for verifying existing survey data and filling in gaps in records. This type of information can help engineers understand how legacy assets were constructed, operated, and maintained. This type of information may also be valuable for determining total tailings volume contained in the TSF, total tailings volume released in the event of a failure, and measure movement in the dyke structure.
This type of study has potential applications for managing and monitoring legacy assets, particularly those where as-built or operational survey data is unavailable or a change of ownership has occurred.

The emergency operation, in response to a failure of a Tailings Storage Facility (TSF) is often a multi-disciplinary, multi-organisational operation, impacting multiple jurisdictions. Capacity of organisations expected to contribute to the operation may vary, eg due to background flooding caused by wet weather.

Within the mining industry it is common to treat a response to a major emergency, such as TSF failure as an isolated short-term operation with a technical focus, and as a solution develop Trigger Action Response Plans (TARP). In contradiction to this practice, the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM) clearly focuses on a ‘shared state of readiness’, ‘immediate response to save lives, supply humanitarian aid and minimise environmental harm’, and the ability to execute ‘long-term recovery’.

The paper elaborates on the concept of ‘principal duties and timescales’ applicable to an emergency, and the importance of defining and communicating a Strategic Intent (SI). A model is presented for an advantageous SI and how to apply it.

It is the combination of understanding the Concept of Operation, and the ability to develop and deliver a clear SI, which via the Plan Inventory is turned into executable plans, that forms one of the corner stones for the emergency preparedness.

Finally, the interconnections between organisations participating in a response to an emergency caused by TSF failure, the concept of coordination, and the application of the SI within that concept, is described.
Preparedness to deliver a response to an emergency is the product of Plans, Organisation, and Competency. To benefit this Emergency

Preparedness, the plans need to give support on how to execute the entire emergency operation over time. If the plans are incomprehensible and overly complicated, the organisation will never gain the Competency.

‘Plans are nothing; planning is everything’, the famous quote by Dwight D Eisenhower is just as valid today as it was when he uttered it in 1957 (Eisenhower, 1957).

LaRonde Mine (LaRonde) is an operating gold mine currently exploiting deposits more than 3 km below ground surface under conditions of mining-induced seismicity. In 2014, LaRonde commissioned a microseismic system to record induced seismic events continuously to evaluate their impact on underground mining operations. Subsequently, there were concerns that mining- induced seismicity could potentially create conditions to trigger tailings storage facility (TSF) failure. Therefore, in July 2020, a vibration triaxial sensor (accelerometer) was installed at the Main TSF to record the peak ground acceleration (PGA) and peak particle velocity (PPV) of the seismic events induced by underground mining activities. In addition, seven vibrating wire piezometers (VWP) are set to record excess porewater pressures at 0.1 second intervals rather than the normal recording interval of one to four hours for the other VWP within the TSF. In case of a seismic event with a magnitude, MR  2, high frequency signal acquisition is automatically triggered, and the seven selected VWP generate an automated report covering a two-minute period, one minute before and one minute after the seismic event. The data collected from the VWP installed at the TSF are used to understand the behaviour and response induced by the seismic loading on the tailings and the cohesive soils in TSF foundation after each underground mining seismic event. Since July 2020, two significant seismic events have been recorded; the first one was recorded 28 December 2021, with a magnitude of MR = 3.8 and a PGA = 0.127 g and the second one was recorded on 29 November 2022, with a magnitude MR = 3.5 and a PGA = 0.422 g. This paper presents the results of a case study of an instrumentation program that has been implemented by LaRonde to monitor the TSF behaviour with respect to mine-induced seismicity activity.

The implementation of the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM) requires regular review of technical monitoring data to assess the performance of tailings dams against design expectations. These monitoring programs often include survey monuments/prisms at discrete dam locations to detect embankment movements based on interpretations of recorded data at prescribed intervals. A timely and reliable interpretation of these movements is crucial as it forms part of a site-wide emergency response system. However, there are often significant survey tolerance issues that exceed movement trigger limits and limitations on the regularity and frequency of the survey data collection that affect the reliability and accuracy of the readings.
This paper discusses limitations that are common within the industry and presents an automatic interpretation algorithm of the survey data that can be implemented in a web-based monitoring application to address some of these challenges. The proposed algorithm provides an estimation using a weighted moving average of survey gradients. The algorithm has proven to be unbiased for linear movements, even when time intervals between observations are randomised. Optimal window size selection using a dynamic k-nearest neighbours (d-kNN) algorithm for non-linear movement is also provided to control the accuracy of predicted movement trend informed by real-time monitoring data.
The implementation of the automated algorithm can provide a tool that increases confidence when reviewing poor quality survey data with poor tolerance.