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Center of Excellence’s 2022 Geotechnical Radar Monitoring Course
In 2021, the Large Open Pit Project supported a Professional Development Water Course offered by the Geotechnical Center of Excellence (GCE) at the University of Arizona. The feedback received from the course attendees has been overwhelmingly positive. The GCE has now gathered some of the leading professionals in the slope monitoring sector to develop a new world-class radar monitoring course. The course is aimed at Geotechnical and Geo-mechanical engineers who want to incorporate radar systems into their monitoring program. The course will provide insight into satellite-based InSAR Monitoring, Ground-based SAR and RAR systems, Radar physics, capabilities and limitations, and interpretation. Unique case studies will provide perspective on risk and pre- and post-failure analysis. See below for registration and more info. Who Should Attend? Geotechnical [Read more]
Bench-scale DAC
The Large Open Pit (LOP) has been sponsoring a research project on updating the guidelines for open pit slope Design Acceptance Criteria (DAC) - see here for detail. As part of this update, a summary of leading practice and target criteria for bench scale design and reconciliation are being drafted, which will be included with the final LOP update document. To ensure that the criteria in the document reflect industry’s leading practice, we have redeveloped a very brief questionnaire to gather industry’s practice. We invite geotechnical leads from different operations and experienced consultants to participate by contacting Dr Renato Macciotta (macciott@ualberta.ca) to get a copy of the survey. All responses will be kept confidential and only [Read more]
Professional Development Course supported by LOP
In 2021, the Large Open Pit Project is supporting a new (online and live) Professional Development Course offered by the Geotechnical Center of Excellence (GCE) at the University of Arizona. The course content is based on the LOP book “Guidelines for Evaluating Water in Pit Slope Stability” and is developed and taught by some of the leading industry experts in Mining Hydrogeology. The course also adds additional and updated material for controlling water in mining operations and improving geotechnical slope stability, and further includes case studies of water management challenges and solutions in open pit and underground mines. Who Should Attend? Geotechnical Engineers, Hydrogeologists, Mining Engineers and Managers who are interested in gaining [Read more]
LOP III Ongoing Projects and the Next Guidelines Book
The Industry-Sponsored Large Open Pit (LOP) Program has been the premier source of geotechnical and hydrogeological research in large open pits and waste rock dumps since 2005, and has provided a number of very well received Guidelines that have become industry standards. Since 2019, LOP III has been running to add further geotechnical and hydrogeological value to the open pit mining life cycle. This includes supporting the delivery of several Research Projects on deep open pits and interaction with underground, education and training to address the looming lack of skilled geotechnical and hydrogeological graduates, and staffing and capability; amongst other. See here for details. Closure planning, in particular, is a [Read more]
LOP Webinars
LOP Online Webinars The LOP seeks to advance globally the state‐of‐the‐art in surface mine geotechnical design and operation through targeted research. The research is intended to be practical and pragmatic with a short‐to‐mid‐term delivery of advances to the industry of 3‐10 years; and to continue the LOP tradition of peer knowledge exchange through close interaction between sponsor representatives and through site visits to operating mines, as well as service provider and supplier centres. This information exchange has demonstrated itself to be an invaluable result of the original LOP project, and continues. Since 2005, the Large Open Pit Project has delivered five Industry Guidelines, which have been taken up widely by [Read more]
LOP Presentation at Slope Stability 2020 Conference
LOP Presentation at the 2020 Slope Stability Conference For the past 15 years, the Large Open Pit project (LOP) has provided a forum for senior geotechnical staff from the sponsor mining companies to meet, discuss and fund research into the geotechnical aspects of open pit mining. Recently, the Chair of the Sponsors' Representatives committee of the LOP, Mr Pete Stacey, delivered an Invited Talk at the 2020 International Symposium on Slope Stability in Open Pit Mining and Civil Engineering (Slope Stability 2020) Conference in October. The purpose of the presentation was to provide a brief history of the LOP project since its initiation in 2005, and to outline the current [Read more]